Becoming
by Kitty Gets Loose
Summary: In the wake of the Dresden Slate's destruction, the kings and clans wait to see what they will become. Munakata, mourning Suoh even now, begins to wonder too if another – still living – relationship he has with someone else could turn into something new. Except that Fushimi's connection with Yata seems to be evolving as well. And Jungle-copycat anarchists are making their move...
1. What We May Be

**Note:** Begins after Return of Kings, so has spoilers throughout.

* * *

 **What We May Be**

Of course they had no idea the kings were here. It was a secret meeting, after all. In this, Munakata Reisi was in agreement with Adolf K. Weismann, knowing that the Silver king needed time and space to breathe while he worked out what they had become, what their clans were now, whether the Dresden Slate had left significant vestiges of power in the rubble, and how much of the slate's effects remained in various Strains.

Of their clansmen, only Kusanagi Izumo and Awashima Seri had been informed about this gathering. Kusanagi was the most objective and mature Homra member, the one who could be relied on to escort Kushina Anna quietly to and from the meeting. Awashima, as Munakata's long-suffering second-in-command, deserved to at least know about it. Besides, if Munakata didn't inform her this time, then her not-so-secret beau Kusanagi would say something at some later point. _Ah, the perils of subordinates' pillow talk._

No one else knew. Weismann had simply given Yatogami Kuroh and Neko the slip. Munakata had purposely requested a date that would coincide with Fushimi Saruhiko's day off. And Kusanagi had confirmed that once Yata Misaki had learnt Fushimi was free, the skateboarding Red had also taken himself off to hang out with his old best friend turned enemy turned best friend again.

So it was pure coincidence that those very two young men were strolling along the street below, across the road from the building the kings had met in. They were horsing around in a uniquely Fushimi-and-Yata way, as Munakata observed from behind a curtain over this second-floor window. Yata, his entire face lit up by a huge grin and his whole body angled towards his companion, said something to Fushimi, whose initial response was to scowl while rolling his eyes behind his black-framed glasses, keeping his hands in his close-fitting trouser pockets and continuing to slouch his way along the pavement.

Then Fushimi's mouth moved lazily around words Munakata couldn't make out, and the reaction from the other kid was immediate. It was as if Fushimi had lit a fuse on a smallish red firework. Yata went right _off_ , freezing momentarily before exploding in a display of dramatic gesticulation and plenty of yelling, accentuated by the skateboard twitching furiously beneath one sneakered foot. Munakata could hear the redhead's yells through the double-glazed panes, but couldn't hear specific words.

Fushimi had stopped walking to watch the dramatics with an expression of superior amusement. But Yata began to wind down at last, and his ranting eased several gears into what appeared to be mumbling, while the heightened colour on his face was starting to appear more like embarrassment and less like the usual effects of his short-fused outbursts. Munakata looked on with no small degree of interest as Fushimi visibly softened, that sardonic smile metamorphosing into one gentle enough to reach his eyes – eyes which gradually lost their half-shuttered, heavy-lidded mask to gaze at his friend with… _ahh_ … was that heartfelt affection Munakata was seeing?

Fushimi's mouth moved again, and this time, with his body being front-on to the building, Munakata could lip-read what the young man was saying: "Wakatta."

 _I understand._

Yata's body language eased down another few gears at that. He looked awkwardly bashful as he lowered his head, angling his face away from Fushimi, and raising a hand to rub the back of his neck between the base of his beanie and the collar of his baggy sweater. Standard shorthand for not quite knowing what to say. Except that he apparently did manage to say something, judging by what little Munakata could see of his jawline and lips.

The Sceptre 4 captain felt his own eyes widen a shade as Yata, still not looking fully at his friend, reached out with his right hand to curl his fingers around one end of the dark fur collar on Fushimi's jacket and pull Fushimi towards him. It was a firm, steady pull that didn't jerk Fushimi, only made the taller man lean in his direction. Yata met him halfway in the movement he himself had initiated, scooting the skateboard three inches closer to where the pavement met the wall they were alongside, and lifting his head at last to speak into Fushimi's right ear. Fushimi listened, his face framed on one side and under his chin by Yata's head and right shoulder, and on the other side by the collar of his own jacket, gripped and raised by Yata's hand.

Fushimi heard him out, eyes still wearing that fond look Munakata had never once seen him bestow on a single soul in or out of Sceptre 4. It seemed impossible, but the kid's expression – and Munakata was sure he wasn't imagining this – really did grow even warmer as Yata finished speaking. Fushimi turned his face slightly towards his friend's right ear, making it harder for Munakata to see his mouth, but it was still fairly easy to lip-read his single-word response – a simple "Hai", spoken with the merest hint of a smile.

 _Yes._

Or – depending on what Yata had said to him before – did it signify "I agree", or "I'd like that", or "Let's do that"?

Whatever it was, it seemed completely to Yata's satisfaction, for the beanie-capped kid straightened up with a blinding smile and transferred his grip to the sleeve of Fushimi's jacket, like a child readying to tug his playmate towards the place they had decided to go to next. Then he pulled, heedless of the stiff resistance and initial halting steps of the other, and Munakata's brow furrowed infinitesimally. But after the first few difficult steps, Fushimi yielded to Yata's relentless momentum, in an agreeable fashion that Munakata had figured he would never see him display in the course of his interactions with his colleagues. Munakata suddenly found himself struck by two thoughts that swam into his mind simultaneously: _If Suoh could only have listened and gone along with me,_ and _Why doesn't Fushimi-kun ever show that side of himself to…_

"Ohhhh, was that a confession we just witnessed?"

The bright voice came from Munakata's right – from beside the other window just a few feet away, and the Blue king (or was he in fact the _former_ Blue king now?) had to admit to himself that it took him utterly by surprise.

"Weismann-san," he acknowledged the Silver king's presence with perfect outward calmness, although he was embarrassed to note that internally, his pulse had jumped, his whole being startled by the unfamiliar experience of not having realised that another king was so close by. "I thought you left with Kushina-san after the meeting."

"Ah – I walked Anna-chan and Kusanagi-san to the back of the building where he had parked his van, then I came back here, as I sensed you hadn't left yet," Weismann said, strolling over to join Munakata at his window.

"Did you now?" Munakata asked thoughtfully when the other man came to a stop two feet from him. "To be frank, I didn't sense you at all. I'm not sure what I can sense any more. But we discussed that earlier."

"Surely _some_ of it, at least, had to do with your absorption in those two," the other man said lightly, nodding towards the figures of Fushimi and Yata moving away down the street. A playful note danced through Weismann's speech, an aural complement to the ends of his long silver hair swaying in tempo with the gestures that engaged his whole lithe frame – he was always so animated, whether in this original adult physique of his, or in the previous teenage body he had temporarily occupied as Isana Yashiro.

"Perhaps you are right," Munakata said politely, letting the corners of his mouth curve upwards marginally. "Still, I must recalibrate and pay better attention to the feedback my senses give me – getting caught off-guard too often would be a poor habit for the captain of a special-forces team to cultivate."

"We're all feeling our way around the changes right now – especially you, Anna-chan and me. And yes, I know this is particularly important for _you_ , thanks to what your country's prime minister has decided."

The prime minister – either out of guilt or a desire to butter him up in the hope that he wouldn't say too much about how the politician and his cronies had effectively laid out the red carpet for Jungle to unleash global chaos – had insisted on keeping Sceptre 4 intact, with Munakata fully reinstated as its head. At least for now. They were to deal with Strains whose powers had not dissipated yet, and perhaps never fully would, but also operate in an expanded capacity as a highly skilled combat and anti-terrorism team vital to domestic peacekeeping.

"It is probably second-most important to Anna-chan, as she has to determine what the Red clan will be from here on, and it won't be easy, as Homra is a well-known group," Weismann continued. "Whereas I am quite off the hook in terms of any public role, since I'm doing little more at the moment than masquerading as a schoolteacher."

The Silver king sighed ruefully and pointed an elegant hand at himself as he delivered that last line.

Munakata added: "A schoolteacher with the mind of a genius who is using all his spare time to gather information that will determine the future of our clans. Perhaps you are under no public pressure like Kushina-san and I are, but yours is the heaviest private burden."

"Oh, I'll survive it," Weismann said breezily. "I've survived a great deal. More than I wanted to, sometimes."

"You didn't confirm during the meeting whether you were still immortal."

"I don't know. If I was vague about it earlier, it's because I still seem to heal from cuts and bruises at an alarmingly quick rate compared with other humans. But I need time to study whether that rate will slow or speed up as the days pass. I'm not so foolhardy as to give myself a fatal stab just for the sake of seeing whether I'll recover – poor Kuroh and Neko would probably go into convulsions from their hysterics if I tried that. But something in my gut tells me all this, all these powers we were given, aren't entirely over yet. Although I do hope, actually, that I'm no longer immortal – it's painful to live on and on while everyone around me fades."

"You told us you could sense hints of power beyond the physical existence of the slate," Munakata prompted, to bring him back on track.

"Indeed! The Dresden Slate itself was imbued with power from something else out there, something bigger, as we agreed. Whether it is of a religious-spiritual nature as was first believed when the slate was initially discovered, or a power without a specific source of intelligence behind it, or something else, we still don't know. But that power chose certain people and animals to express itself through, and I have a suspicion that if it chooses to show itself in our corporeal world again, even without the slate, it may well return to those it selected before."

"I'm not so sure that it would choose _us_ again, as we were responsible for destroying the slate it channelled itself through for so long."

"That's assuming it bears grudges," Weismann giggled. "Or that it isn't, in fact, grateful to be no longer rooted in the physical constraints of a slab of rock."

"If so, let's see if it can bestow its powers upon its chosen vessels this time _without_ the threat of eventual execution hanging over our heads whenever we need to exert ourselves beyond a certain limit," Munakata remarked a little grimly.

Weismann smiled again, but sadly this time, no doubt thinking that while he himself had survived his Damocles Down, Kagutsu Genji, Habari Jin and Suoh Mikoto hadn't been so fortunate, and Munakata himself had been teetering right on the edge before the slate's destruction. Either by the massive supernatural sword itself, or indirectly – by the blade of another person determined to prevent the holocaust of a Sword of Damocles smashing to earth with all the force of an asteroid – the kingship bestowed by the slate had also been a terminal sentence for those three men, and very nearly for the fourth too.

"Well, we shall have to be patient as we search for answers, won't we, Munakata-san?" Weismann asked, the cheerful note back in his voice. "There is little we can do about determining what we have become until we learn more about whether all the power that was overflowing from the Dresden Slate still exists. In the meantime, just… be yourself!"

"That, at least, I think I can do," Munakata smiled wryly.

"Yes, for now, we can only be ourselves, and live, and take care of the ones who are important to us! Which brings me back to those two – I wonder if it really _was_ a confession we saw there…" Weismann mused mischievously, all but pressing his face against the glass of the window for a glimpse of the figures of Fushimi and Yata, now far away at the end of the road.

"I wonder too."

"They're exceptionally important to each other, aren't they? Yata-san was so very, very tense on the Schattenreich that day – all of us were calm during the ride and panicking only when we realised we were literally going to smash into the heart of Jungle territory, but Yata-san was the opposite – he was absolutely still and silent with anxiety for Fushimi-san throughout the journey, but all blazing to go as we crash-landed. I had the feeling we couldn't crash soon enough for him! Especially once it was clear that Fushimi-san had put himself in immediate danger by opening the Yomito Gate, giving us access to Jungle's headquarters."

"Yata and Fushimi go a long way back."

"Their friendship must have evolved through several cycles. I wonder what they have become to each other now."

"It doesn't matter what they are to each other, as long as Fushimi is even a little less unhappy than he has been for so long." Munakata stated this in what he thought would be his usual measured speech with the optimistic lilt he naturally adopted around the majority of people, only to have his own ears discover, as he spoke, that his tone of voice had an edge he hadn't consciously intended.

"Hmmmmm…" Weismann turned back to Munakata with a calculating gleam in his eyes that was slightly disconcerting in its sheer childlike _naughtiness_ , considering that it was coming from a man who had existed for almost a century. "So that's why I got all that gossip from various sources about how – long after we nullified the slate, and even after you received what I hear was an impressive cross punch from your beautiful lieutenant for putting her through hell, and _definitely_ way after you should have been packed off to hospital for a good deal of medical attention – you continued to linger at the site, staring into the rubble. My sources speculated that you were mourning the end of the Dresden Slate. But _I_ think you were really waiting for Fushimi-san. You relaxed and left only after he returned in one piece."

"By 'sources' I suppose you mean Kushina-san and Neko-san sitting down over dessert pancakes to chatter about everything they in turn had heard via Kusanagi-san, from Yata and Awashima-kun," Munakata commented dryly.

 _Ah, the perils of girl talk._

"The information was accurate, though, was it not?" Weismann pressed, his youthful, strikingly beautiful face alight with amusement.

"I put his life in tremendous danger by asking more of him than perhaps I ought to have."

"Duty before sentiment, as befitting the Blue king – or maybe, as befitting what the Blue king was before. But even then, you did everything you could to stack the odds in favour of his safe return by roping in Yata-san and paying a fortune to Hirasaka Douhan to extract him if Yata-san couldn't."

"Yata Misaki did reach him in time, but then he left him again."

"And wasn't that also all about duty before sentiment?" Weismann asked. " _You_ would understand that better than anyone – as you're so incredibly good at it."

The ghost of Suoh Mikoto suddenly loomed, and for a second, Munakata wished it wasn't terribly against protocol for the Fourth king to punch the First. Especially when he couldn't be certain that Weismann had even meant to allude to the act that haunted too many of his nightmares and waking moments – driving his blade, with his very own hand, through the heart of the man he still thought of as the one person he could actually have loved above any other.

If things had been different.

If Suoh's heart hadn't been irrevocably lost to Totsuka Tatara somewhere in years past.

If that same heart hadn't as good as died along with Totsuka on that rooftop.

If.

What a pointless word.

"It was a little easier to let him go when you thought that you, too, were going to die, am I right?" Weismann asked with a greater measure of seriousness, and it took a few seconds for Munakata to snap into the present and realise that the Silver king was referring to Fushimi, not Suoh.

"Nothing about it was easy." Munakata wasn't sure if he himself was talking about Suoh or Fushimi now. It flashed in his mind that Fushimi had once taken a deliberate dig at him for killing Suoh in an apparent attempt to anger him, and Munakata had not been angered; whereas now, even with Weismann's comment probably not being intentionally provocative, he was roused, mainly because _Weismann_ of all people ought to…

"But then the slate was destroyed and it dawned on you that you were actually going to _live_ , and that was when it became unbearable to think that Fushimi-san might not," the Silver king continued to speak.

"Weismann-san seems to know more about me than I do," Munakata said with a cool smile, adjusting his glasses by a millimetre.

It occurred to the Silver king now that he might have caused offence, and that the Blue king might have been thinking of Suoh, _and_ that it was Weismann himself whose strategy for destroying the Colourless king had tipped Suoh's power over the edge into a Damocles Down. Weismann began waving his hands rapidly in a gesture of denial, exclaiming with nervous laughter: "Ah – hahahaha – oh dear no, Munakata-san, please pardon me – I never quite know the right way to say things at important moments – if my sister were still alive, she'd have twisted my ear right off by now! How presumptuous of this old man to try to tell you things about yourself…"

Munakata eased back on his coolness and let the edges of his mouth tilt up a little more, remarking: "It is interesting that Weismann-san thinks he has been presumptuous." Spoken, of course, in the sort of neutral manner that could imply it was anything but interesting.

Weismann sighed and went on to say, at a less manic pace and in conciliatory fashion: "All I hoped, really, was to express that although many distressing things have happened and we continue to grapple with unsettling changes, we must allow all the emotions we felt during those upsetting times to point us towards what is truly important in the here and now, and to let _that_ direct our choices so that what we eventually become is not what we will regret becoming. For me, I stay grounded in the realisation that Neko helped me to grasp in the seconds before we defeated Hisui Nagare – that what matters most deeply to me is a life in which I can spend happy moments with the people I care about, even if those moments are made up simply of sitting down together for tasty meals around a small table."

"I am happy to know that Weismann-san had such a positive epiphany, and I can only hope that one as good will dawn on me in time," Munakata said politely.

"I hope so too, Munakata-san. It is important to seek happiness in your present days and in the years to come. Truly. Please take it from someone who spent far, far too much time literally living with the dead and forgetting that the very dearest ones who have passed on would never want to hold us back from moving forward with happiness into the future."

"Thank you, _Hakugin no O_."

"I'll take my leave now – Kuroh and Neko must be turning the whole school upside down in search of me, haha! I'll update you about my findings and observations, and I look forward to receiving the same from you and Anna-chan. See you soon!"

With a degree of haste – whether from residual nervousness over having upset a man at least two inches taller and a good deal more solidly built than himself, or for fear that his clansmen would really upend the high school that had become their home – the Silver king beat a retreat.

After a few minutes, Munakata stepped out of the meeting room Weismann had booked for them in this commercial building. He walked across the corridor to enter another, unoccupied meeting area whose windows looked out from the rear rather than the front. From there, he watched to make certain that Weismann was really leaving this time. Indeed he did – from the back exit, as the kings had agreed on, to minimise the chances that their clansmen or associates would spot them coming and going.

When Munakata was sure that Weismann had walked far enough from this spot not to run into him again if he left now, the Blue king entered the stairwell and walked the two flights down to the ground floor, then likewise exited by the back door. But unlike Anna and Weismann, Munakata circled round to the front, to the street along which Fushimi and Yata had strolled together. He looked down the road in the direction they had gone, and saw no sign of them. They were out of sight by now.

Against the nudging of his instincts, the Blue king turned and walked the other way, back towards Sceptre 4 headquarters.


	2. Puzzling

**Puzzling**

The hallways were always cold. The stingy bastards who funded their section – and who'd plonked Sceptre 4 in this pile of stone and plaster in the first place – hadn't thought it necessary to cough up for adequate modern heating. Sure, the offices were okay in the daytime, and you could crank up the standalone electrical heaters if you were working late, but the rest of the building sucked. The ornate hallways in their shabby grandeur were especially nasty after dark. Fushimi shoved his hands deeper into his jacket pockets and shrugged the fur collar higher up about his neck. Damn. It actually felt colder indoors than while he'd been making his way back here through the streets.

He was one of very few Sceptre 4 personnel who routinely froze his ass off in the passageways late at night. Not many of his colleagues worked into the ungodly hours daily, and few returned to headquarters long after dark at the end of a day off. Most had personal apartments to retreat to in the city with friends and family when off duty; they wouldn't report back to HQ until 8am the next day. Fushimi had no such refuge and nowhere else to sleep, so he was always the one navigating the corridors alone after his weekly breaks.

It was still strange not to have to brace himself for that crawling feeling which for years had rubbed his insides raw whenever he'd thought of the apartment he and Misaki had shared. The discomfort was gone. In fact, he'd just come from that very apartment, and there was no cause for his old unease. Except that the crawling sensation had been replaced by an ache – an annoyingly tender spot in his psyche. _Misaki… clueless as ever…_

He'd been doing his damnedest to keep the promise he'd made to "learn how to say things so a fool will understand", and Misaki, the said fool, had been trying painfully hard to comprehend him. But some truths were impossible to declare plainly. He knew it wasn't fair to Misaki. He barely understood himself sometimes, so how could Misaki decipher anything through Fushimi's morass of emotional damage? Yet, if there was anyone Fushimi consciously and not so consciously expected to interpret him, it was Yata Misaki, the only friend he'd ever had, the one he'd somehow hoped he could stay a child with forever, the only human being he'd ever thought of when he thought of "forever".

 _Tch._ Fushimi clicked his tongue to fend off the sentimentalism he still hated to feel treacling through his veins whenever he was ambushed by good thoughts about Misaki. _Don't get ahead of yourself_. For they were still navigating their salvaged friendship, trying to gloss over the hiccups, exploring in a deliberately unplanned way where all this was taking them.

Maybe it would take them right back to that familiar space of living together, if Misaki meant what he'd said today. No, Misaki always _meant_ to mean what he said. But the more relevant questions were whether he would remember what he'd fired off, and more importantly, if he understood the ramifications of everything he chattered about so freely. Of course, all that was moot if Fushimi had just thrown a spanner into the already-confused works with his parting shot to Misaki an hour ago. Too late now to worry about what couldn't be unsaid – or said properly.

He clicked his tongue again as he moved on autopilot mode towards the Special Squad main office. Until he had a clearer sense of what he and Misaki were becoming, he would keep busy with paperwork. It was accursedly mundane, but a familiar ally.

For a long time, work had been his climate-controlled sanctuary from a volatile internal universe racked by hatred of his powerlessness over how he and Misaki were no longer everything to each other. It gave him an environment in which he could see the point of what he had to do, unlike in Homra. Even when he had to snarl at _baka_ Doumyouji for his juvenile hand-drawn reports or occasionally bear with Hidaka's annoyingly optimistic after-hours company, it was within the expected boundaries of his job description. Nothing like the tightrope of borderline hysteria he'd walked with Misaki during his interminable final weeks in Homra, when neither words nor silence had seemed safe, either or both capable of destroying the last shreds of their connection.

Thank goodness the status of the Strain population's powers was still in flux. _And_ that the regular police and military special forces were uncertain how best to tackle the rising number of anarchists inspired by the Green clan's tactics and Jungle's labyrinth of digital chaos to pull off crazy copycat stunts. Because it meant there was still a role for Sceptre 4 – in fact, a broader role. Which meant he had plenty of work to keep him occupied.

Fushimi pushed open the door of the communal office where he typed up his incident reports and vetted those submitted by the team. As expected, the place was in darkness. Obviously, everyone else had returned to the dorm. He used his foot to flick a heater switch on, reached across his desk to boot up his laptop, and clicked on the table lamp with his other hand.

The very next second, he almost died of fright on the spot when the light threw into view a figure seated in another corner of the room, and a voice he didn't have the calmness of mind to find familiar piped up pleasantly: "Fushimi-kun – I was just thinking how nice it would be if you were to walk in now."

Fushimi _just_ managed to choke back what would most likely have been a very unmanly shriek, failing only to hold down a strangled sound that came out a bit like " _Eagh!_ " as he fought to bring his abruptly accelerated pulse under control.

"Ah – I'm so sorry – did I startle you?" the deep voice went, not sounding at all sorry.

Fushimi took a deep breath and went still, poised to… fuck it, he didn't know whether to explode or attack with icy coldness. In the end, it came out neither here nor there, a watered-down mini eruption of sorts in which he hissed: " _Captain?!_ What the HELL are you doing here sitting in the dark like… like a fucking _stalker?!_ "

"So I did startle you," Munakata observed.

The bastard was chuckling – actually bloody _chuckling_ as if he were watching amusing kitten videos or some such shit.

"It's not funny," Fushimi scowled.

"It is from where I'm sitting," Munakata laughed.

"Seriously, Captain, why are you here?" Fushimi growled, recovering enough from his near-heart attack to shift his weight off the desk which, embarrassingly enough, was all that had saved him from falling to the floor on his butt.

"I was waiting here in the hope that you would come in, as you frequently do, unreasonably long after official working hours," Munakata stated, getting to his feet and walking over, smiling with every appearance of genuine mirth. Fushimi could see now that he wasn't in uniform but in a turtleneck, casual trousers and ankle boots, all in dark hues he couldn't more precisely label by the limited light of the desk lamp.

"Why?" Fushimi asked warily, adjusting his glasses. _Now what? Had someone complained about his control-freak management style again?_

But Munakata only pulled up a neighbouring chair and sat down elegantly, saying: "It occurred to me today that you and I never had a good talk about our final confrontation with Jungle."

"Haaah?" was Fushimi's response, underscored by a mostly blank but slightly incredulous stare. "You want a debriefing _now_ , weeks after it ended and at… a quarter to midnight on my day off?" He had to flick a glance at his watch to insert the time into his comment.

"Hmm, no, not a formal debriefing – I received your mission report the moment we were both discharged from hospital, and it was impeccable. I still haven't ticked you off for that, by the way – it obviously meant you were working while warded."

"What else was I supposed to do in that hospital bed? Lie back and think of Japan?" Fushimi scowled.

Munakata chuckled again, and remarked with what Fushimi couldn't be certain the captain even knew was innuendo to match his own: "I'm sure I could think of _many_ things to do in a hospital bed – but that's beside the point. You could have focused on your full recovery, and getting to know better the colleagues who were _all_ anxious to visit you when they learnt how badly you'd been injured, instead of spending an hour typing up your report."

"Fifty-two minutes."

"Splitting hairs."

" _Tch._ Whatever. If you have no queries about my report, what's there to talk about?"

"My involvement of Yata Misaki, for one."

"What about it?" Fushimi asked, reluctantly lowering himself into in his own chair when Munakata gestured towards it to indicate that he shouldn't remain standing.

"Your report stated succinctly that you were assisted in your duel against Gojou Sukuna by 'a member of the Red clan', before Hirasaka Douhan used possibly the last of her powers to transport you out of the basement levels. You avoided mentioning Yata Misaki's name although you included Hirasaka's, instead of simply referring to her in the same vein as 'a mercenary of the Green clan'."

"Consider it an oversight that I mentioned the mercenary's name, then," Fushimi muttered. "The report was going to you, and you knew who both parties were since _you'd_ engaged them. Besides, it seems you involved both of them in your personal capacity as the Blue king, not as Sceptre 4 captain, so I didn't want an official civil service report to include too many details of your efforts to rescue me like a damsel in distress."

"It would indeed be rather awkward to be depicted as some variation of Prince Charming sending out minions to save his princess because he himself was too busy battling the witch," Munakata smirked, although he did look as if he was seriously considering whether he would make a good Prince Charming.

"Why do you always go overboard with the allegories?" Fushimi groaned. "For about the hundredth time since I joined Sceptre 4, I feel sick from the bottom of my heart."

"We can't have you falling ill on your day off, can we?" Munakata asked good-humouredly. "Let me get back on track by asking what you make of my telling Yata Misaki about your undercover mission."

Realising that he wouldn't be able to end this discussion by grumbling, Fushimi replied after a moment: "One: You thought I might not make it out alive, and before you died too and took that secret with you to the grave, you wanted my old best friend to know I wasn't the second-time traitor he thought I was. Two: You wanted to improve my chances of making it out alive and told Yata the truth, knowing he would do everything he could, including delaying his own mission, to charge to my rescue."

"Both assessments are accurate. What do you feel about the outcome of my decision?"

"Yata saved my life. So did Hirasaka. Both were sent by you. So you saved my life. I don't need to explain what I feel about that, but I'm not going to say 'thanks' since you were the one who stuck me on that suicide mission in the first place," Fushimi groused.

"You're not displeased that Yata-san came for you, then," Munakata said thoughtfully. "I'm glad. I was concerned that you might be ambivalent, considering the omission of his name."

"Hnn."

"What transpired between you that day also appears to have repaired your relationship."

"Is that a question?"

"It is if you're willing to answer it."

"We're friends again. Though I hope you're not expecting an invitation to a wedding just because you played matchmaker."

Munakata looked very much as if the idea of being invited to the nuptials of a couple he'd played matchmaker to was the most delightful notion in the world.

Regretting his sarcasm immediately, Fushimi warded him off with: "No. Don't. Whatever you were about to say, just. _Don't_."

"I'll refrain from expanding on the wedding allegories for now," Munakata acquiesced agreeably. "For my part, I am very grateful that you came back alive, Fushimi-kun. If I could have avoided putting you in such excessive danger in the first place, I would have. However, if I had to send someone on an equally crucial mission again, and even if there should be more than one potential candidate this time, I would still choose _you_ , because I trust your skills – and your loyalty – above all others in such a critical situation. And I would do all within my power, all over again, to retrieve you alive and well."

Wait… _What?_ Since when did Munakata ever say anything significant that was open, plain and clear and didn't need massive decoding – preferably after arming oneself with a Master's in philosophy?

Fushimi wasn't sure if he was expected to respond. He hoped not, because he didn't know how. He also hoped Munakata didn't think this was supposed to be a cue for them to tumble weeping into each other's arms with declarations of lifelong loyalty, because like hell he was going to do any such thing. But as it was impossible to guess what he was thinking, and _just in case_ the man happened to be stone drunk and less in control of himself than usual, Fushimi discreetly slid backwards in his chair by the few centimetres he could.

"The argument we staged before you infiltrated Jungle is another thing we haven't discussed yet," the captain added.

"Do we need to?" Fushimi asked.

"It was a good fight, but as we hadn't planned what to fight about beforehand, I've been wondering if the things we said to each other were issues you and I needed to get off our chests anyway."

"There's nothing to get off my chest," Fushimi groaned, feeling as if he would never make his way out of this weird conversational maze.

"You were right that evening about my tendency to turn inward when things don't go the way I'd planned."

"Captain, look, it was a _fake fight_ …"

"With undercurrents of truth," Munakata insisted. "I do tend to shut people out when I've failed. I do tend to withdraw in a way that is possibly unhealthy for me and my team when we have to regroup. I aim to change that."

"Then you're going to say next that there was also an undercurrent of truth in what you said about my being a traitor?" Fushimi asked coldly.

"Ah," Munakata smiled smugly. "No. That was _really_ pure fakery on my part…"

Exasperated, Fushimi growled: "Then so was what I said, and there's no need to dissect…"

"… but there _were_ undercurrents of resentment in me that you had been with another clan before, and that I was now sending you off to a _third_ ," Munakata interjected. "I resented the fact that you hadn't been mine from the start and was bitter that I couldn't continue my fight against the Green clan while keeping you by my side. But I had to send you. Not merely because you were the only one who could convincingly infiltrate Jungle, being a person the Green king had long been interested in, as well as someone who had changed clans before, but because I trusted you deeply. And if you had not returned to me alive, Fushimi-kun, then it would have been better for me to have met my end at Awashima-kun's hands."

Less certain than ever if there was any possible correct reply to such words, Fushimi murmured: "I... don't know what to say."

To his alarm, Munakata leaned forward to peer at his face closely – damn it, the man had _no_ sense of personal space! Fushimi instinctively reared back although there was nowhere to go. "Captain, we've talked about this before."

"Too close?"

"Too close."

"But I really wanted to see the expression on your face."

"Haaah?" Fushimi went for the second time tonight, with a shade more incredulity, trying to work out quickly if Munakata had finally lost what small amount of normality he'd ever had in that bizarre brain of his.

"I was hoping to see a gentler look in your eyes after I'd poured my heart out to you," Munakata said, pulling back to a more socially acceptable distance. "It's rare for me to show my hand and reveal to someone that they aren't merely a chess piece for me."

The lilt in the Blue king's voice could be interpreted as teasing, if Fushimi cared to analyse his tone in-depth. Which he didn't. Although his damnably analytical brain was doing just that, anyway.

"Captain," Fushimi murmured cautiously, as the cogs of the well-oiled gears in his head speedily began to align. "Is this about Kusuhara Takeru?"

"You were always quick on the uptake," Munakata looked pleased that Fushimi had connected this unusual conversation to their exchange nearly two years ago about the late Blue clansman who had sacrificed his life by taking a bullet for Munakata. Fushimi had come away from that talk suspecting that the Blue king icily viewed his clansmen as mere tools to be used and replaced, or discarded if extraneous.

"You don't have to do this," Fushimi stated, instinctively trying to put up barriers against having his mind read even though he knew Munakata's powers had vanished with the slate. "I don't need reassurances from you about my place in your giant jigsaw puzzle. I walked into the Blue clan with both eyes wide open, and I've never expected anything more than the terms you offered – or less."

"True," Munakata said. "But I was reminded today that we are in a time of change. The person who told me that spoke some words which at first angered me, but he may be wiser about other things than I am. He reminded me that we are changing as we navigate this state of flux, and if we do not want to eventually turn into something we will regret becoming, then it would be good to live in the present instead of getting lost in the past."

Munakata had always been that most infuriating of betters – the kind who lured you to his side simply by being so bloody superior in every way, and kept you close by presenting that serenely smiling, oh-so-reasonable, "my-door-is-always-open" façade, while in reality being completely closed off in a million ways impossible for anyone to breach. Anyone but Suoh fucking Mikoto, who branded people like livestock and whom Misaki had mooned over like a sheep bleating over its dead shepherd.

From very early on in his association with Munakata Reisi, Fushimi had recognised that this man was like Misaki in that he was marked by Suoh – not literally, on the flesh, but worse, deep in his soul. Team that with the Blue king's unnerving ability to predict the moves of his people, and Fushimi had learnt very fast to pull off the feat of never opening up to Munakata while at the same time allowing himself to be exposed, as a Blue clansman, to that terrifying mind.

He didn't want someone damaged by Suoh in his innermost recesses. He could let Munakata into his _head_ , no problem, but he would never let him probe his _soul_ – that raw aspect of his being he had once opened a crack only to Misaki, then slammed shut once it became clear how much of his friend Suoh had consumed. So ironically, he had drawn on his hated Red aura to shutter off that festering wound from Munakata's Blue probing. He had no powers now, but neither did the captain, so…

Fushimi's thoughts, zipping along at lightning speed, were interrupted by Munakata's speaking again, apparently continuing from his last point: "Suoh Mikoto…"

 _Seriously?_ Was he still doing his uncanny mind-reading shit?

"… I was reminded of him today also," the Blue king said, thoughtfully.

 _Is there even a day when you aren't?_ Fushimi wondered irritably.

"We had a brief exchange about him too, did we not, at last year's hanami?" Munakata asked.

Crap. The hanami. Munakata had gently ribbed Fushimi back then about his "fond" memories of Homra, and Fushimi, overreacting in self-defence, had taken a verbal stab at Munakata about killing Suoh. He couldn't say that he regretted his barb, for the captain's calm response, delivered with a seraphic smile, had shown Fushimi his king's absolute resolve to put duty before personal interests. But he did regret that it had only potentially exposed his own dissatisfaction with the importance of Suoh in Munakata's life. After taking such pains to screen off the petty bitterness in his soul over Misaki and the late Red king, he had gone and lifted the fucking veil all on his own. _Good job, Saruhiko._

Now, Fushimi eyed Munakata cautiously as the captain went on to say: "You were right about Suoh being one of my worst unhealed wounds."

"I didn't say that," Fushimi pointed out.

"Not in those words, but it was the effective message," said the Blue king. "I have begun to accept that what belongs in my past should stay there. I don't know how well I will succeed in keeping history as history, but I don't intend to let Suoh's memory chain me to a place I ought to leave. Neither do I intend to let him be a barrier between me and the ones I want to connect with when I leave that old spot."

"Why are you telling me this?" Fushimi asked, his bored tone only barely disguising his genuine curiosity.

"Because you are someone I want to move into the future with, Fushimi-kun."

"Eh?" was the most intelligent syllable he felt he could summon this second.

"We've both been too haunted by Suoh Mikoto, and I don't want to move forward without at least trying to take you with me. I think Suoh has damaged you in an indirect way, through Yata-san. I believe you are healing that wound gradually with your old friend. But it will be a prickly road, because unlike you – and me, for that matter – Yata-san only has good memories of Suoh, so he won't harm himself by constantly revisiting that past alongside his devotion to Kushina-chan. However, if you let him take _you_ back there repeatedly, you won't fare so well. So I want to make it clear to you that I won't leave you behind if you stumble. If for any reason Yata-san is unable to nudge you away throughout all the times when he lingers in that place which isn't good for you, I'll do all I can to beckon you forward."

Curse it. _He'd always known, hadn't he?_

"You – this –" Fushimi choked out angrily. "This is none of your business."

"I told you four years ago that I didn't need clansmen who couldn't solve their own problems, and you joined Sceptre 4 with the understanding that I wouldn't interfere with the way you did things," Munakata said smoothly. "As your captain, I still won't interfere with the manner in which you accomplish your work, and I won't handle your problems for you. But as your king, I believe now that I could have been more open with you in some ways, as well as not let you close yourself off to such an extent. I also won't stand by and do nothing if you can't extricate yourself from a situation that could cause you lasting damage."

"Are you even a _king_ any more?" Fushimi demanded.

"In the sense of being one created by the Dresden Slate? I don't know. But I remain responsible for this clan as its head, and the kings of the extant clans continue to feel hints of the power that imbued the slate, just not in that familiar concentrated form, at least not yet."

"What are you saying?" Fushimi asked, abruptly forgetting his anger when he realised the implications of what Munakata was dropping so casually, almost as an aside.

"I'm saying that we don't know yet what the kings and clans will become. There is no way of knowing except by waiting and watching patiently. Even if nothing comes of that waiting, though, I will never shrug off my responsibility to my clansmen."

"Do you also single out your clansmen for this sort of personal treatment, in the course of fulfilling your responsibility?" Fushimi asked caustically.

"No, but you're the only one of my clansmen besides Zenjou who has never been completely open to me," Munakata said with a knowing smile. "You're wary to the extent of refusing to even play card games with me just because those are the occasions when I most obviously predict everybody else's moves…"

"The hell?" Fushimi gasped. "That's not why I don't play card games any more – they're just a waste of time…!"

"…and since Zenjou is a grown man far older than me who only decided to stay in case no one else had the stomach to lop off my head, that really only leaves you – you're my _personal_ responsibility, since I seduced you away from your Red friends and took you into my fold while you were still little more than a child," Munakata went on, talking right over Fushimi.

"That is the biggest crock of bull I've…"

"And I've said my piece. Any objections?" Munakata asked cheerfully.

"Plenty. For starters, keep your nose out of my personal relationship with Yata."

"What? But I played _matchmaker_ ," Munakata protested with mock-hurt.

"And stay out of my head."

"You seem to forget that I am currently without my powers and am unable to read my clansmen the way I used to before."

"Well, you seem to be doing a bloody good job of it still."

"Ah, does that mean I was right about everything I said?" the captain smirked.

"You – _ughf_ ," Fushimi emitted a cross between a groan and an exasperated huff. "That's it. Please leave and let me get on with my work. Since you insist on getting 'personal' with me, I assume you won't take it amiss if I get equally personal with you by dismissing you now – one person to another – and not go all Lieutenant Awashima on me by telling me this is no way to behave towards one's captain or some such shit."

"All right, but I would also like to remind you that I've put you strictly on desk duty these past weeks to let your physical injuries fully heal. They won't heal if you don't get enough sleep either. So speaking _personally_ , I'd advise you to shut down that laptop and go to bed."

"My injuries _are_ healed."

"Not as completely as I would like. Do you think I haven't seen that stiffness in your right leg whenever you try to speed up your movements abruptly? Your friend Yata-san may not observe such things when he drags you around with him enthusiastically, but the signs are noticeable to the more detail-oriented."

Fushimi's eyes narrowed. Had Munakata seen him with Misaki today?

Munakata was continuing: "The hospital reports that you haven't been for any of your follow-up appointments since they removed the stitches from that knife wound on your thigh that went right down to the bone."

"There's nothing to follow up on," Fushimi muttered through clenched teeth. "Everything's fine."

"Would you like me to have a look at it?"

" _What?!_ " Fushimi snapped. "Of course not! Do you know _where_ that fucking wound was inflicted?"

"Are you sure?"

"Are _you_ seriously proposing to a subordinate that he should drop his trousers and bend over for you?" Fushimi growled sarcastically. "I believe Sceptre 4 has a raft of rules against sexual harassment."

Too late, it occurred to him even as he lashed out that he'd left himself wide open for Munakata to counter playfully that they were being _personal_ now, weren't they, not interacting officially, and would he therefore like to drop his trousers and bend over? In a strictly _personal_ capacity, of course.

Fushimi thanked whatever there was to thank out there in the universe that the cone of light from the desk lamp wouldn't expose the reddening of his face, if it appeared anything like how it felt right now. _Damn, damn, damn…_

Munakata could see that wide-open avenue of attack – of course he could – the fucker was smirking and looking as mischievous as he'd ever seen him. But the Blue king was apparently in a merciful mood, for he stood up, straightened his glasses and put his chair back in place, saying: "Well, if you're sure, Fushimi-kun, I'll leave you now. But please take my advice to go to bed instead of working tonight. It's your day off, after all."

" _Tch._ "

"Goodnight, Fushimi-kun," the captain said as he left.

Fushimi waited for the door to swing shut after Munakata, then slowly released the breath he barely knew he'd been holding. He clicked off the lamp and sat in darkness for several minutes, going over all that Munakata had said. When he couldn't replay it any more without feeling he'd go berserk, he switched the lamp back on and tried to do some work. For once, it was eluding him as a refuge. He found himself reading and re-reading the first paragraph of a report submitted by Gotou and Fuse about a man who had been arrested after causing a ruckus in a restaurant this afternoon. The man had been taken into Sceptre 4 custody because numerous eyewitnesses insisted that he had sent tables and crockery flying through some form of telekinesis, although those powers had disappeared by the time Gotou and Fuse arrived on the scene.

The meanings of the words weren't sinking into Fushimi's brain no matter how many times he went over that paragraph. He was about to give up and take Munakata's advice to go to bed when these words three paragraphs down caught his eye: _"… the suspect, who is not and has never been a Strain or a member of any of the seven known clans, claims he obtained his powers temporarily after playing a mobile game available through a new app released by an unregistered game developer…"_

Fushimi began reading the report from the beginning, attentively this time. Then he spent the next hour online doing research into the developer and the app, with limited success. Finally, at about 2.30am, he strode briskly from the office wing to the detention cells, and snapped at the barracks guards on duty to let him through. Doubtless recalling that the last time Fushimi Saruhiko had come to the cells without proper authorisation, he had broken Hirasaka Douhan out of prison and defected to Jungle, the guards looked practically constipated with indecision. But Fushimi snarled at them some more, threatened to wake Munakata, and got his way.

For now, he would forget the captain's weird remarks and focus on this matter which had his instincts tingling. He unlocked the cell door, approached the middle-aged man whom he'd startled awake with the noise from all the clumsy unbolting they now had to do without their clan powers, and smiled grimly as he leaned down to peer into the bleary-eyed face.

" _So_. Tell me about this game…"


	3. Changing

**Changing**

Anna should have been the one who was far more embarrassed, but it was Yata who was scarlet-faced and fumbling.

"Sorry, Anna!" he gasped as the zip tab slipped out from between his thumb and finger for the fifth time.

"It's okay, Misaki," Anna said softly. After a pause, she added in an impossibly sensible voice: "Calm down."

 _Right._ He could do this without humiliating himself (and Anna) a whole lot more. He was a 20-year-old man, and he wasn't going to be defeated by a jammed zipper on a kid's outfit.

But this wouldn't be happening if he hadn't come to the bar extra early. Which wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been unable to sleep because of Saruhiko – whose behaviour he still hadn't processed, despite banging his head against the wall beside his bed half the night.

So he'd come in first thing, to find Kusanagi-san on the phone. Hearing the name "Yamanaka-san", Yata knew this was an important call from that client who regularly booked their wine-catering and mobile-bar services for his corporate parties. That was good, because it meant more revenue from this totally legitimate side of the business which didn't rely on the bar proper, or on protection money.

Yata had only been indoors for a minute when Anna spoke from the top of the stairs leading to the rooms above.

"Izumo," she'd called softly, in a way Yata immediately recognised as their princess' – no, their king's – _"Please come here, I need your help"_ tone.

Kusanagi-san, jotting down details on a notepad, had wedged his phone between his ear and shoulder, and gestured to Yata with his momentarily freed-up hand to please see what Anna needed.

Thus, he'd gone upstairs, saying: "Anna, Kusanagi-san's on the phone with a client. Can I help you with anyth…?"

Then he'd seen the pickle the kid was in, and they'd both turned pink in the face.

Anna had obviously slept in the hooded, furry lion onesie Totsuka-san had bought for her when she was 10. He'd deliberately got one a few sizes too big, saying she'd grow into it. Kusanagi-san had asked at the time if their little princess wouldn't be a bit too old in a couple of years to wear animal onesies, but Totsuka-san had confidently predicted that Anna would still love cute outfits even when she was 12 or 13. Mikoto-san had grunted in tacit approval, and that had settled it.

Well, she was wearing it, adorable fabric ears and all, but he guessed that when she'd tried to change this morning, the zipper had snagged the lace on her… what had Awashima-san called it when she'd given it to Anna…? Oh, yes – a camisole! Which meant she was trapped in a furry cocoon she didn't want to damage.

"Misaki…" she whispered when she saw him in her bedroom doorway.

Totsuka-san would have breezed through this and left smiles all round; Mikoto-san would have sorted it out wordlessly after a plea from the kid not to tear the garment. These days, her guardian Kusanagi did all the fatherly things required. Yata and Kamamoto were probably the next closest to Anna – and it wasn't as if Yata hadn't done all sorts of big-brother jobs for her over the years, or curled up with her for naps on the couch in the bar.

But at 12, Anna was an adolescent, fast turning into a young lady, and Yata hadn't fallen asleep with her in his arms for a good few months now, or helped her with matters of dressing.

"Misaki, I'm stuck," she admitted, defeated.

"Y-yeah, looks like you are," he'd mumbled, scratching the back of his neck. "Here, let's see what we can do about it…"

He knelt in front of her while she stood beside her bed, and examined the threads jamming the zipper – some were from the onesie lining, others from the camisole. Anna was holding out the tangle of fabric towards him, away from her body, and he reddened further to realise, this close up, that she was no longer the completely flat-chested child of years past, but was budding… _Aaaaarrrgh!_ He had _NOT_ just so much as _thought_ about budding breasts on _Anna's_ chest, had he?! Gaaah! That was _SO_ wrong! He should beat himself senseless!

Taking a deep breath and trying not to expose his blushing face to her, he bent his head low so that he WOULD NOT be able to see over the camisole neckline, and started picking the lace trim out of the zipper. His calloused fingers were the worst for such fiddly work, but he was doing his best, and he freed the lace with little damage to it. At least the onesie wasn't stuck to the camisole any more, and Anna no longer had to hold out the inner garment awkwardly along with the furry outfit.

"I don't suppose you can just squirm out of it like this without tearing it?" he asked hopefully.

"The zip has to be much lower," came the practical answer.

"Okay, let's see…" he murmured. "Do you have scissors?"

"I don't want to damage the lion."

"I'll only cut these loose threads off – they look like they've frayed off this… uhm, I don't know the word for these lining things, but this strip here doesn't look like it will cause a tear if we cut off the threads."

Anna nodded solemnly and said: "Behind you, on the dresser top. The small silver pair in the tray."

He found it nestled among a few oddments in a leaf-shaped glass holder. He could barely squeeze his thumb and index finger through the tiny handle holes, but managed to snip off the threads close to the fabric, leaving enough length for him to tug on.

However, they – and the zip – were stuck fast. He figured that attempting to work the zip up and down a bit might dislodge them, but the tab was small, and he kept losing his grip on it, getting increasingly flustered. That was when Anna had told him to calm down.

He collected himself, and yanked at the stuck threads while pulling the zipper downwards, and thank all the heavens above them, because suddenly the threads came free, and the zip went down, and hurrah! Everything was working again!

"Yes!" Yata cried in relief, brandishing the freed threads like a prize, until his blush deepened when he saw he'd drawn the zip down far enough to expose the top band of Anna's panties. In a panic, he pulled the now-working contraption back to a decent level, and stood up quickly. "There you go – you should be able to get yourself out of that now!"

Unexpectedly, Kusanagi-san's voice came from behind him, saying drolly: "Oh, Yata-chan, I think I might have to marry you."

" _What?!_ " Yata gasped, swivelling around to glare at Kusanagi-san out of a beetroot-red face.

"You'd make Anna a great mum," the bar owner joked.

"Kusanagi-san! Don't make jokes like that! You're as bad as Saruhi-" he protested before cutting himself off when the man's teasing made it feel like he was reliving yesterday's conversations with Saruhiko. And he was still making _no_ headway figuring out why that monkey had…

"What happened with Fushimi? Did he propose to you? And who said I was joking?" the other man asked innocently.

"NOTHING happened with Saruhiko! And your _girlfriend_ would say you were joking!" Yata hissed. "Go tease Awashima-san about these things!"

"But Seri-chan _never_ falls for any of it," Kusanagi lamented. "You're so much more entertaining."

"Izumo," Anna chided softly. "Don't embarrass Misaki any more."

"All right," Kusanagi laughed, letting Yata past him out of Anna's room. "Since you're here early, you might as well help me get those water rings off the far end of the bar counter – I swear I wiped them off last night after closing, but the marks seem to have sunk into the wood."

"Okay," Yata mumbled, making his escape.

"You do remember how I taught you to do it, don't you?" Kusanagi called after him. "Don't let the stain remover sit too long, and don't over-rub the marks!"

"Yes, yes," Yata muttered, tripping down the stairs.

"Hey," Kusanagi called again, making him stop and look back up. "Thanks for always taking such great care of Anna."

He nodded, still blushing, and slipped into the bar.

Out of nowhere, the memory rose up, painfully sharp, of an evening about three years ago when Anna had gone to bed, and the gang was sitting around in the pub, drinking, smoking and laughing about how they were going to make life hell for whichever poor guy from outside Anna eventually decided to date and marry when she grew up, because _all_ of them here at Homra were her dads and big brothers (although Totsuka-san was practically her mother). Chitose, forgetting that Saruhiko's defection was still a very sore point with Yata, had gone on to pronounce that the mystery behind Mikoto-san's criteria for choosing clansmen had just been solved: Obviously, undying loyalty to the Red clan wasn't an issue, since that traitor Fushimi had survived the test; rather, ever since Anna had entered Mikoto-san's life, the only standard he'd had for selecting Reds was the condition that they should Not Be Paedophiles. Nothing mattered above and beyond Princess Anna's well-being.

Kamamoto and Fujishima had taken one look at Yata's face and nudged Chitose to shut up about Fushimi, and they'd changed the subject. But Yata had remembered it later, and thought how strangely true it was that in this motley gang of socially maladjusted, hard-living guys who ranged from the borderline-criminal to outright lawbreakers, _not a single one of them_ was the sort to touch a child the wrong way. Whether they were the womanising kind like Chitose or the quiet kind like Eric, withdrawn like Saruhiko, sweet-natured like Totsuka-san, or dangerous like Mikoto-san, nobody – not one – would ever do anything inappropriate to someone like Anna.

For that, Yata felt flooded with gratitude, because Anna was so important to him – to all of them. When she'd had her full Strain powers, and her king's powers, she'd been able to read people's feelings and futures. Although as a child she could not always pinpoint what certain emotions meant, she had always known if someone meant well or ill. And every one of them, even Saruhiko, had passed her test. They'd all proven trustworthy in the most crucial standard Mikoto-san's powers had apparently gauged them by. Hell, even when Saruhiko had claimed not to give a shit about them, he'd still chipped in to rescue Anna from the Green clan just before she became the Red king.

 _Aaaaarrrgh, Saruhiko!_ He was as impossible to grasp as ever, Yata thought as he polished the countertop slowly. Heaven knows he'd tried _horrendously_ hard to figure out what had happened yesterday while childishly banging his head against the wall last night, then doing an insomniac workout at 3am, and again while whizzing along on his skateboard to the bar this morning, to no avail. But now, with these slow, calm movements, it felt like he was finally starting to sort through some of the Saruhiko-caused confusion that had his brain in a snarl worse than downtown gridlock.

Everything had gone great yesterday. They'd hung out, bantered, had a few spats lasting… oh, about ten seconds each. And Saruhiko had done his best, he could tell, to actually speak his mind. He'd made an effort to be clear instead of going all snarky and vague like in the past. He was genuinely trying to be open with him, as Yata had asked.

Around lunchtime, passing through the commercial district after visiting a stall they both liked for its yakitori, he had declared that Saruhiko should move back into the flat. Yata really wanted that. Even if he was in Homra and Saruhiko was in Sceptre 4, so what? They weren't enemies any more. They were friends again! They'd had a great time living together once, so why shouldn't they now? Saruhiko would spend most nights in the Sceptre 4 dorm anyway, so he wouldn't have to put up with the entire Red gang when they hung out at the apartment. And the one night a week he'd spend at home, Yata would make sure no one else came over to bother him, that was all. Easy!

" _Come on, move back in!" Yata had cajoled. "We're not gonna fight any more – not as bad as before, right? Even if we fight, you'll only have to show up once a week, and you'll have cooled off by then!"_

" _Should we be living together so soon?" Saruhiko had murmured doubtfully._

" _Eh? Why not? Haha, you know what happened when you went off on that top-secret mission you couldn't tell me about?" Yata had laughed. "Your lieutenant rang Kusanagi-san after you stormed out of Sceptre 4 to ask if we'd seen you, and he said she was on the verge of tears fretting over whether you had anywhere to sleep on such a cold night. Kusanagi-san thought it showed how sweet his 'Seri-chan' was, but I was gagging, you know. So if you ever need to stage a fight with your king again, you'll have somewhere to sleep this time, and Kusanagi-san won't have to get any more sniffly phone calls from his woman worrying about another guy!"_

" _As if anyone would fall for another staged fight prior to another undercover mission," Fushimi had scoffed. "It's hardly a reusable tactic."_

" _Whatever! Come on, move in with me already!" Yata pleaded with his hugest grin. "Heh, you could never stay away from me even when we were enemies, so you're sure as hell not gonna be able to resist me now!"_

 _Fushimi had scowled before one of those smiles spelling trouble had crept over his face, and he'd drawled: "Mi-sa-ki… always in such a rush. Pestering me to live with you when you haven't even got down on one knee and proposed yet. Cart before the horse, surely?"_

 _Yata had stopped dead, stunned into silence for a moment before exploding: "WHO'S getting down on one knee and proposing ANYTHING?! You're always pissing me off with your stupid remarks about stuff that has nothing to do with whatever, and you haven't changed a scrap! You think it's funny? I'm trying here, you know! And – aaaarrrgh! – I DO understand a few things better now, so don't make it so… uughhh! Oh and by the way I still totally want to KILL you for telling me you were fine on your own after we both saw off that little shit Gojou – you were lying to me again, crazy monkey! You WEREN'T fine! Kusanagi-san said your lieutenant told him you'd almost died down there and some money-sucking mercenary your king had to pay out of his own pocket had to drag your sorry ass back up above ground! I could have fucking taken you with me to complete my mission, but no, you had to lie and say you were in sunshine-and-roses condition to look after yourself! I – I thought a lot more about things after that, and as I said I think I do get how you felt when you were in Homra… I didn't understand then, and I'm not sure I completely do yet, but I'm trying. I know that… you'd been happy with just us, you and me, and I was dragging you into a crowd of people I guess you didn't want to get close to, and when I started getting close to everyone else in Homra, you thought I didn't want you any more, but it wasn't like that, stupid Saru! I was trying to give us a bigger family. I wasn't trying to push you away, I was trying to give us both more of what we'd never had enough of – real friends who'd always have our back, you know? And I'm sorry I didn't understand. You didn't say anything, and I just thought you'd need more time to get used to everyone. It bugged me that I was the one trying to do all the work for both of us with our new friends, but I just… I just want you to know that I never even dreamed back then that none of it was what you wanted… and if I'd known, I'd have done_ anything _to make things better for you…"_

 _His yelling had gradually tapered off into mumbling, and he hadn't known how to go on. But Saruhiko, looking at him in a gentle way Yata didn't think he'd seen from his friend since they were 15, had stated simply: "I understand."_

 _Yata felt every crack that made across his heart, because he_ missed _that look, dammit. Impulsively, he'd dragged Saruhiko towards him so he could say into his ear without having to look at him… seriously, it was SO embarrassing: "I never wanted to make you feel you were anything other than my best friend, because you always were, and are, and always will be. And I hope you'll move back in because… shit, because I miss having you there, idiot monkey. You don't have to say yes right away. Just… think about it, okay? Even if you don't want us to live together again, we'll still always be best friends, and nothing will change that. For now, just come over for the rest of the day? I'll cook you dinner without a single vegetable in it, I promise. Is it okay with you? Do you want that? Will you…?"_

 _Saruhiko had whispered "Yes" back into his ear, and it felt as if everything was more perfect than it had been for ages._

 _So they'd gone back to_ their _place, as Yata preferred to think of it. After Saruhiko had walked out on Homra, Yata had abandoned the flat – it was too much to live there with those crazy-making memories, imagining the creaking of the bed above him in the night, feeling horribly cold knowing Saruhiko wasn't tossing and turning up there any more. For weeks, he'd slept on the couch in the bar, soothed by Mikoto-san's and Anna's presence upstairs. And sometimes, early in the morning, Anna would come downstairs and crawl under his blanket to curl up with him._

 _Then one day, when Yata was sick of busting his brain cells and nearly bursting a vein over Saruhiko, he'd simply moved back in, because having had Saruhiko live there before somehow made it feel like home – even with the crazy memories._

 _Now, Saruhiko was physically here again, and Yata was scrambling around snatching stuff off the tatami, switching on the kotatsu so his friend could stay warm under it, making instant coffee for him, and pulling meat out of the freezer to thaw for grilling later. They'd talked, taken digs at each other, and he'd yelled a bit again when Saruhiko teased him about how messy the place was._

 _They'd played games on his new console, Yata thumping him roundly and whooping with glee. Saruhiko had sniped that of course Yata would be good at these games since he obviously spent_ all day _on them, clearly having nothing better to do, unlike the gainfully employed. Yata had accused him of sour grapes and retorted that he was earning proper wages from Kusanagi-san's mobile bar business, and wasn't a layabout like smug government dogs seemed to think he was. A cushion fight of sorts had ensued, and they'd collapsed under the kotatsu afterwards, kicking half-heartedly at each other's shins._

 _Then Yata had rolled over to the worktop in the corner, cut the beef and chicken into chunks and grilled them, slathered on teriyaki sauce (thank goodness he still had half a bottle stuffed somewhere at the back of the fridge), and tried to persuade Saruhiko to grill and eat some fruit too (to no avail)._

 _Later, he'd wheeled down the street to grab drinks from a vending machine, half-fearing Saruhiko would vanish once his back was turned. But he was still there, starting on a new game, and they'd dived into it like old times, dodging missiles and whizzing through one level after another, and in between, popping the tops off the cans and guzzling way too much caffeine and sugar._

 _At some point, fatigued from gaming but jumpy from the canned coffee and carbonated drinks, they'd dropped their consoles, fallen back onto the fraying tatami, and stared up at the ceiling. Yata had kicked Saruhiko under the kotatsu – they'd squeezed together under one side of it to face the gaming screen – and said: "Hey, stay over tonight. You don't have to report back until next morning, right?"_

" _Yeah."_

" _So stay the night."_

" _Hmm, I don't know if that's a good idea," Saruhiko had murmured in that lazy way he had when the effects of the caffeine he'd imbibed were starting to fade and were about to drop him into what Yata liked to think of as 'comatose restlessness'._

" _Why?" Yata had asked, levering himself up on one elbow to look at Saruhiko, who'd partially turned his back to him. "You're not gonna tell me it's too soon, right? I know things weren't always easy for you here, especially when the whole gang came over. But I'll make things better from now, I promise. I'll make sure they don't come over when you do, and I'll be here with you, alone."_

" _You don't have to try so hard, Misaki," Saruhiko had said._

 _Yata had asked: "What do you mean try so hard? I'm just doing what I ought to have done ages ago – understand you better and not make you feel like I didn't want you, cos I do. I swear I'll do anything…"_

 _That was when Yata had simply rested his chin on Saruhiko's shoulder and snuck an arm over his, curling up behind him like they'd done a million times way back in the past, and Saruhiko had stiffened – Yata had actually felt his muscles go tense under his chin and his arm. Saruhiko had eased out from under the kotatsu, then got to his feet._

" _Oi," Yata had called, staring up at him, bewildered at the odd look on the other's face._

" _Misaki," Saruhiko had stated in a tone of voice that Yata could tell he was trying to keep casual so it wouldn't sound so serious. "We're friends again, and you're not going to lose me – I'm trying to say this plainly so you'll understand that you don't have to bend over backwards to keep me. I know perfectly well you like girls, even though you're too damned shy to string two words together when you meet one. I'm going back to the dorm now. Thanks for today, and for dinner. I'll see you next week – my treat next time."_

 _Before Yata could start to process what Saruhiko had said he was trying to "say plainly", the other man had pulled on his boots at the genkan and was out the door, shutting it quietly after him with a click._

Now, as Yata polished the countertop robotically, lost in his efforts to comprehend the being who went by the name of Fushimi Saruhiko, something began to click as the wheels turned slowly in his head. Why would Saruhiko say out of the blue that Yata liked girls? Why bring up such a thing? What did it have to do with _anything_?

"I like girls…?" Yata murmured absently, trying to squeeze out the significance behind the words by uttering them.

The tiniest movement directly in his line of vision reeled him out of his haze as he repeated the words to himself, and he realised Anna was now downstairs, having changed into one of her usual frilly dresses, and was right on the other side of the counter, chin on the smooth surface, enormous ruby eyes fixed on him.

So there he was murmuring "I like girls…", and there Anna was looking straight up at him, and that exact moment, the significance behind Saruhiko's words crashed into his brain, and he reeled back from the counter yelling: "NOT LITTLE GIRLS! I DON'T like LITTLE girls!"

Anna's reaction was to widen her already huge eyes, in an expression of alarm and – oh, shit! She looked really _hurt_ – as she asked uncertainly after several awful moments of silence: "Misaki doesn't like… Anna…?"

Yata began frantically back-pedalling from his back-pedalling. "No no no no no, I don't mean that. I like you lots. Not in THAT way, but Anna is absolutely Misaki's favourite girl! I will always, always and forever like you more than anyone else! Just not in the OTHER way!"

"What other way?" Anna asked curiously.

Kusanagi came up behind Yata and smacked him on the back of the head. "Oi, watch what you're shooting off in front of Anna or I'll hit you a lot harder than this, and not just with my hand. What are you rambling about, idiot?"

"Saruhiko – Saru – he… said… oh, shit," Yata muttered, feeling literally weak in the knees as he sat down hard on the floor behind the counter, clutching the polishing cloth like a lifeline anchoring him to this reality where no one spoke in riddles.

"Oi, Yata-chan!" Kusanagi repeated worriedly.

 _Honestly?_ So… all the time, he'd been yammering on about understanding how Saruhiko had felt about their being best friends, while Saruhiko had actually been thinking about… _no, really?_

Reeling from the revelation that maybe, just maybe, no, probably, Saruhiko had wanted not just to be his best friend but his _boyfriend_ too – _had he wanted it once or did he want it still?_ – he struggled to get to grips with that incredible idea when Shouhei walked into the bar, eyes glued to his phone. Yata scrambled up off the floor, not wanting curious questions that would turn into questions from the entire gang, which would end up in an interrogation and psychobabble therapy session that would devolve into a massive exercise in unintended humiliation (the sort of thing Saruhiko would probably say).

"Oh, hi," Shouhei mumbled, barely lifting his eyes from the screen.

"How come _you're_ in this early too?" Kusanagi asked.

"Ah, Kusanagi-san," Shouhei said, finally looking up properly. "I asked San-chan to meet me here to puzzle out this online game thing…"

"What online game thing?" Yata cleared his throat to ask, striving for some semblance of normality that did not involve landing on his ass on the floor behind a bar counter after suddenly discovering that his best friend might just have had the hots for him for years and having in the same second to frantically deny being either a paedophile or a child-hater.

"I was with my family over the weekend, and my cousin was playing this game on his phone, and he swore that after reaching a certain level, it gave him enough powers to move small objects a bit without touching them. But he had to keep playing to maintain it, and was still trying to get to the next level," Shouhei explained. "He seemed to be able to make a pencil wobble on the floor, but that's as far as he's got."

"Playing a mobile game that gives you telekinetic powers?" Kusanagi asked cautiously. "Doesn't that sound suspiciously like Jungle? There've been copycat groups trying to cause chaos using online challenges carried out in the real world, but none have managed to impart _powers_. If this is something new that's more similar to Jungle, that's not good news."

"I thought of that too, and I _was_ wary," Shouhei assured him. "But there's no clan aura around my cousin like Jungle users had – nothing – just plain… powers."

"Have you tried it yourself?" Yata asked, curious now.

"Yeah, but would you know, even with my cousin's directions, I couldn't locate the damn app on my phone – it's like the site was blocking my device. I had to borrow his old phone from him just to download it. And though I've reached higher levels in the game than him, I don't have any pencil-moving abilities. So I asked San-chan to check it out, but he can't find the app on his device either."

"I don't like the sound of this," Kusanagi muttered, as they gathered around Shouhei to peer at the screen of his borrowed phone, which showed a game in progress where the player had to follow certain rules to reorganise a complex arrangement of numerous dashes and dots, interspersed with other basic shapes, in a pre-specified order.

"This is level eight, and the game claims that by level four, you should be able to attain some real-world powers of telekinesis," Shouhei said, holding the screen lower so that Anna could see.

"Is there a page of terms and conditions?" Kusanagi asked, shifting his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose.

"Uhm… oh, I dunno – I never checked…" Shouhei admitted, exiting the current screen and tapping on an icon in the corner that looked like it would lead to info of some sort.

It did indeed take them to a wordy page, and Kusanagi needed several minutes to read it even though he was accustomed to scanning business documents.

"Look at this disclaimer," he finally murmured, pointing to a line buried in the middle of the list.

Yata mouthed the words as he read them: "'Please note that this series of games is not designed to be effective for individuals who already have, or have ever had, any other natural or acquired abilities beyond those of normal humans…' So that means…"

" _What?!_ " Shouhei yelped. "By 'abilities' do you think it means powers like we had before we destroyed the slate? You mean anyone who's ever been in a clan…"

"Or who is a Strain…" Kusanagi interjected.

"…can't get powers from this game…?" Shouhei finished. "Ugh, what a waste of my time!"

"Someone designed this game specifically to give people who've never been clansmen or Strains the chance to develop powers of their own?" Yata asked, frowning.

"I'll tell San-chan not to bother coming over yet," Shouhei muttered, tapping on the call screen on his phone.

But Bandou was already here – in fact, he tore into the bar, announcing urgently: "Inamoto's is under attack!"

Inamoto-san, a business owner who operated in Homra's territory and under their protection, ran a fusion eatery that served meat Brazilian churrascaria-style along with traditional sushi. It was in the next street, and at once, everyone grabbed their weapons and raced out of the bar, Yata far ahead on his skateboard, smoothly rounding the sharp corner at the end of the road.

He reached the eatery, flicked his skateboard off the ground and into his hands, and charged into the shop to find Inamoto and one of his workers crouching on the ground behind a table turned on its side, flinching at the crashing sounds from the kitchen. The entire front window of the shop had shattered; glass was everywhere.

"Yata-san!" the restaurateur cried when he saw him. "One of our suppliers has gone mad! He says we tried to ruin him by rejecting the crates of fish he delivered yesterday, but they smelt off, so of course we had to refuse the lot! He says he's lost money on it, and he's wrecking the place!"

"Get out of here!" Yata hissed at the restaurateur and his worker as he shifted his grip on his _bo_ and tucked his skateboard under his arm.

This eatery had salon-style swinging doors instead of regular _noren_ to screen off the kitchen, enabling the serving staff to move in and out easily with their tall skewers of grilled meat. Yata pushed one side of the doors open a crack – but a crack was all it needed for a viciously long, sharp skewer to come flying out, missing his face by millimetres. _Oh, shit,_ he thought, leaping backwards, tucking the _bo_ under his arm while transferring his grip to the skateboard. Because in that second, his quick eyes had caught enough to register that the man inside was sending stuff flying without actually touching any of it.

In the next second, things got worse, because the man – about 30, he'd guess, slim-built and with an absolutely enraged expression, emerged from the kitchen, snarling: _"Ah, it's the Homra cur!"_. And what looked like every skewer in the shop was hovering in the air around his head, quivering with intent, aimed right at Yata. As he leaped back out into the street, he saw, to his horror, that Inamoto-san and his worker hadn't left the eatery entirely but were stupidly peering into it from the broken window, in the line of fire.

"Get the _fuck out of here_!" Yata hollered, shoving them aside to safety as the skewers flew like arrows.

With barely half a second to spare, he raised his skateboard to block off about six of those implements directed through the broken window straight at his throat. But a seventh grazed his side, piercing his sweater and getting trapped in the cloth by its hefty wooden handle, throwing him off balance as an eighth stabbed him squarely in the thigh.

"YATA!" someone – probably Kusanagi-san – was shouting further up the street. He and Bandou and Shouhei were just rounding the corner at the end of the road, and Yata frantically tried to warn them off, but the man was stepping out of the shop now, and sending knives – _shit, those disgustingly sharp sashimi knives!_ – whizzing up the street towards the other Homra members.

 _Please don't let any of them be hurt!_ Yata thought desperately as he lunged at his opponent with his staff while holding his skateboard like a shield, and got a good blow in, but the man retaliated with a flurry of heavier equipment – pots and skillets. Yata dropped his staff and staggered under the onslaught, tumbling down the sloping street, scrambling back to his feet only in time to raise his skateboard to stop a knife aimed at his abdomen. He was two shops down the road now, stumbling backwards against the plywood hoarding covering an untenanted unit, and the man was walking out into the middle of the street, those skewers – the bastard still had at least ten of them hovering around his shoulders – pointing at Yata again.

"Mutts like you who protect cheats should go to hell with them," his attacker growled, and in the next moment, the man had somehow psychokinetically curved the trajectory of one of the skewers to drive beneath the skateboard. Yata dodged it – it was targeting his chest – but he didn't get his whole body out of the way in time, and the damned thing stabbed clean through his right upper arm and through the plywood behind him, pinning him in place. The sheer agony of it made him drop his skateboard, which clattered away down the street, and another skewer drove through his left hand, nailing him to the plywood by yet another point.

So this was it. This was the end. He glanced to his left to see Kusanagi-san, Bandou and Shouhei sprinting towards him, but they weren't going to reach him in time, they weren't–

" _Misaki!"_

Yata's blood ran cold.

 _No._ No, please, no. Please, _please… NO!_

Because suddenly, from his other side – she must have nipped round through the back of another shop while the man was flinging knives at the adults he could see he needed to deal with – Anna ran out into the road, planting her fragile, tiny body between Yata and the man who meant to kill him.

"ANNA! NO!" Yata screamed, and he could hear Kusanagi-san and the others crying out too, and he desperately threw his weight against the skewers pinning him to the board, not caring now if he tore right through his flesh and bone, because – no, no, no, Anna had no king's powers now, none at all, and if she died he wouldn't want to live either – but all he could do was rip his hand loose, too late.

The skewers flew, Anna in their path, her back to Yata, arms outstretched on either side of her in her determination to shield him, to protect him.

" _ANNA!_ " he shrieked again, feeling as the cry tore his throat raw that he wanted to die now – it was over – he never wanted to open his eyes to another second of life again because Anna was gone–

– then he saw it, and so did the man and Kusanagi and Bandou and Shouhei –

A swirling aura of a multitude of colours surrounding Anna and extending beyond her like a forcefield, like the protective aura of kings shielding their clansmen, except this wasn't red or blue or silver or green or grey but all of them and more.

The aura intensified when the skewers reached her, like nothing anyone had ever seen. Their sharp points thudded against the shield as if they had crashed into a surface as solid as steel, then every one of those lethal objects clattered harmlessly to the ground at the feet of Homra's little king.


	4. Three Kings

**Three Kings**

She couldn't see Misaki's fate clearly. But this wasn't an effect of her changed abilities after the slate's destruction.

In many things, shifts had happened. She could see more colour now, not just red. Very little, but enough for looking anew at familiar people, things and scenes. That tie Izumo liked to wear actually looked nice with his white shirts, Tatara's old camera had depths of colour in its surfaces that she was just noticing, and Neko's hair was so many wonderful shades of light.

She could now let stronger feelings out without causing harm to people around her as she had developed greater control over the reach of her emotions. But she also sensed that the effects of her emotions had weakened on their own, maybe because the slate was no more.

And she no longer needed to peer through her red marbles to _see_ a person's inner truth. She could tell just through her own eyes. Mostly, she screened off her special vision so the impressions of fate in each person's life wouldn't flood her head and heart. Of course, whenever she did see something in someone, she almost never told that person, because most people did not take things with acceptance like Mikoto and Tatara. Many became fearful or too excited, and that sometimes changed their destiny again, often to something less happy.

But she'd _looked_ at Misaki this morning, and _looked_ again, because his future was suddenly unclear. _Is my vision weakening?_ she had wondered. However, she'd seen Izumo, then Shouhei, with clarity. It was Misaki whose fate had become unsettled. Something had changed, and anything could happen, perhaps depending on what decisions he made.

That was what had made her so terrified for Misaki's life when the fight had started. Maybe that was why his future was unclear – she might lose him right now, forever… _no_ , she couldn't let another person precious to her die in such a horrible way. And as her heart swelled and her emotions broke loose while she raced towards him, she _felt_ it – she felt what the Silver king had mentioned during yesterday's meeting – the power that had once been concentrated in the slate in the air around her, floating loose, and she simply _knew_ in her desperation to save Misaki that, yes, she _could_ gather those scattered specks of power because she was a Strain who had also been a king, and she didn't know how to explain it even to herself, but she just _knew how_.

The man who wanted to kill Misaki had gone insane – she could tell as she dashed in front of him – perhaps only for now, because the madness wasn't deep inside his soul but making his brain sick. He did not see her as a child like most adults did, and she could not _connect_ with his frenzied mind. She saw that he only viewed her as another being to destroy. But Anna wasn't afraid now. She knew how to do this. She _focused_ , and _pulled_ the power towards her, around her, into her, made it strong and packed it full of the loose specks, then stretched it out like she had stretched her Red wings – no, bigger than her wings – much bigger, so she could protect Misaki.

The long, sharp weapons had flown towards them, and slammed into the wall she had formed. Then Izumo and Shouhei and Saburouta had jumped on the madman and knocked him out. All the things the man had been controlling – pots and knives and large shards of glass – crashed to the ground once the blows to his head made him unconscious, and Anna had released the concentrated power she had gathered so that it returned to the world around her.

That was when she realised how frightened she had been for Misaki – her legs trembled as she tried to run towards him – his right arm was still nailed to the board by that horrible thing, and he was bleeding _so much_. Izumo was beside them now, checking quickly with his eyes that she was all right and at the same time trying to hold Misaki up by his left arm without hurting him.

Misaki was reaching for her with his left hand, which was torn and coated completely in blood dripping off his fingertips, and the red colour was so intense. She took it so, so carefully, to not hurt all the torn, gashed parts – and just stood there shaking while he cried and asked her hoarsely again and again why she had done that. _"Don't ever put yourself between me and danger again! I won't want to live if you die!"_

Izumo worked the skewer free of the board without pulling it out of Misaki in case it made him bleed more, and carefully helped him sit down on the ground. While Saburouta watched the madman to make sure he didn't wake up, Shouhei grabbed clean napkins from Inamoto's eatery and applied pressure to Misaki's wounds, taking care not to jolt the skewer in his arm. Then Izumo took out his phone and made an urgent call to Seri.

"Seri-chan," Anna heard him say in a tight, tense voice as he moved to a quieter corner away from the crowd of people gathering round, and Inamoto-san wailing that he never wanted anyone to get hurt. "Something's happened…"

Anna tried to re-summon the power she'd had only moments ago so she could do something to stop the bleeding… but even though she remembered how she had drawn it towards her, she was now unable to exert that _pull_. Her strength to do it appeared to have been in answer to her terror for his life, and it was as if that strength had gone back to sleep.

All she could do was keep Misaki's hand held up, as Shouhei told her to, and press the napkin over it, swallowing her tears because Misaki was already so upset with the danger she had put herself in. She and Shouhei kept him awake and alert until – she didn't know how long it was, but vehicles pulled up around them, and she heard the familiar rapid beat of boots racing across the tarmac. All at once, regular police officers were moving the bystanders away from the area while Misaki was helped by Blue clansmen and an emergency medical team which had arrived in an ambulance.

Seri was talking to Izumo while directing two of her fellow clansmen, and a woman who appeared to be a doctor, to see to the man who had attacked Misaki. The doctor took equipment out of her bag and injected the man with something which Shouhei told Anna would make him stay asleep until they could lock him up where he couldn't use dangerous items to hurt anyone else.

Suddenly, Saruhiko appeared beside them, looking paler than ever, dark rings under his eyes as if he had not slept all night. Anna sensed immediately the chaos of emotions in him – relief that Misaki was alive, jumbled with distress at how badly hurt he was, tangled with fear that he might yet die from his injuries. As the ambulance crew discussed how best to put Misaki on a stretcher while working around the skewer, Saruhiko said nothing, only stared at Misaki, and Misaki stared back at him, neither of them speaking. The medical team had asked Anna and Shouhei to move back so they could tend to Misaki, and they'd obeyed. But abruptly, Saruhiko stepped right up to Misaki, crouched beside him, and wordlessly peeled aside the flap of his sweater that one of the men from the ambulance had cut through to let them examine his wounds. Saruhiko stared at the skewer protruding front and back from Misaki's arm, looked across at his torn left hand, and lifted a cut flap off his cargo pants to look at the other deep wound in his leg, all without a word from either of them.

It was strangely… what was the word Izumo had used once when he'd thought Anna wasn't listening and was talking to Tatara about his habit of taking Mikoto's hand fearlessly whenever Mikoto got lost in his own depths? _Intimate._ That's what it was. It was strangely intimate.

That was when Anna _looked_ at Saruhiko too and saw that just like Misaki, his future was in a state of movement in which she couldn't pinpoint anything clear. Then she felt a tingling sensation on the back of her neck when her Strain powers – and maybe a wakeful part of those dormant-again king's powers – told her that a third piece of the puzzle was involved in this odd state of change. It meant that she wasn't at all surprised when she turned around and saw – standing at a distance but watching the scene intently – the Blue king, Munakata Reisi, presenting to her vision a fate no clearer than those of Misaki and Saruhiko.

…

 _Oh my,_ thought Weismann. _The young man looks like death warmed over._

The Silver king, accompanied by Kuroh and Neko, had hurried from Ashinaka High to the Medical University Hospital as soon as Munakata had contacted him about the incident. The Blue king had remarked that Sceptre 4 headquarters or even the Homra bar would be better places to ask Anna in detail about what had happened. However, with Yata Misaki undergoing what would be hours of emergency surgery to repair a host of torn ligaments and blood vessels, no one from Homra would budge from the hospital. Neither would Fushimi Saruhiko who, it seemed, could shed light on how the man under arrest – neither a Strain nor a clan member – had managed to acquire such impressive telekinetic powers.

So the hospital it was for their briefing.

"Shiro! Shiro! Are we lost? Where are we?" Neko demanded worriedly, trotting after him as they hurried down one long corridor after another.

"Ah… Munakata-san said they were in Block C, in the conference zone on Level Three, so we shouldn't be far," Weismann reassured her.

"This way," Kuroh said, pointing to an overhead board with arrows indicating the directions towards various hospital departments.

Arriving at the conference-room zone, they almost ran into Kusanagi Izumo and Kamamoto Rikio rounding a corner.

" _Iromegane!_ " Neko cried out. "Anna – how is Anna?!"

"Anna's fine," Kusanagi said, making an effort to smile and speak gently to the agitated girl even though Weismann could see that his face was tense with worry. "She's in Conference Room 5 just round the corner. I'm sure she would be very happy to see you, Neko-chan."

"Shiro! I'll go to Anna!" Neko chirped before dashing away.

Weismann communicated to Kuroh with a tilt of his chin that he should be with Neko to make sure she behaved properly among the Homra members. With perfect understanding and a dutiful nod, his katana-wielding clansman walked off after their handful of a kitten.

Kusanagi was instructing Kamamoto: "Stay near the operating theatre with the rest of the guys, and message me at once if you hear anything about Yata-chan. I don't know how long this meeting'll take, but we're only in the next block from the OR, so reassure the gang that Anna and I are close by."

After Kamamoto left, Weismann asked Kusanagi with genuine concern: "How is Yata-san?"

"He lost a lot of blood," Kusanagi said tiredly. "If they hadn't given him a transfusion the second they did, he might have bled out beyond the point of safe recovery. His left hand is in shreds, and they'll have a hell of a job patching it up intricately if he's ever to use that damn hand again. Muscles torn in his right arm too, but that's actually a more straightforward reattachment case. There's a deep wound in his thigh, but the tissues aren't badly damaged, apparently. From what I see, he'll probably live, but you know how major surgery is for regular folk who aren't immortal – it can go any way. Anna can't quite tell right now – she says things are clouded, which is troubling."

"I'm sorry that Yata-san is so badly injured," Weismann murmured. "I hope the operation goes well."

It was mere convention, what he was saying, but at such moments, trite words of empathy could be better than striving to engage a distressed party whose mind and heart were focused only on the person they cared about.

But Kusanagi was saying: "Anna tried to resummon the power she used to shield her and Yata – she wanted to use it again to stop the bleeding – but she said she couldn't. She seems to think it was the desperation she felt to save Yata that enabled her to… as she said, 'pull the floating specks' towards her."

"I see," Weismann murmured thoughtfully.

"These 'specks'…" Kusanagi began. "Are they what Anna says you mentioned at yesterday's meeting with her and Munakata?"

"Most probably," Weismann replied. "But we can't be certain yet. Let's try to find out more when we talk to Anna once Munakata-san is ready."

"Ah, yes – he says to give him thirty minutes more – it seems Fushimi's finishing up organising his findings about the people emerging with powers that don't come from the slate. That kid's pretty shaken by Yata's injuries too, though he'd probably rather poison himself than admit it. I'm heading back to the conference room now. Coming with me?"

"Please go ahead, Kusanagi-san," Weismann said. "I'll join you soon."

Weismann wanted to ponder what he had heard about Anna's commandeering of what was most likely the slate's scattered power. But he was also drawn by what he sensed was the presence of the Blue king not far away – indeed, as he walked towards where he felt Munakata was, he could hear his deep voice in the next corridor, speaking in low tones.

"… everything he needs?" was the tail end of what Weismann heard Munakata saying.

"Yes, Captain," came the reply from a man whose voice he didn't recognise. "We brought Fushimi-san his laptop, tablet and notes earlier, and Lieutenant Awashima is still twisting the hospital director's arm to make sure he gives us that conference room for the rest of the day and doesn't bother the Red clan either. Akiyama-san is in the room checking that the projector is set up."

"Has there been any trouble between the Homra members and the hospital staff?"

"No, Captain," said another man's voice. "The Red clan has been calm. Also, Fushimi-san contacted Yata Misaki's mother immediately after the incident, and she and his stepfather and younger siblings reached the hospital half an hour ago. The Homra guys behaved even better the moment Yata-san's family arrived, and they are unlikely to make trouble while his mother and those two children are here."

"Good. Return to the operating theatre waiting area and stay there until further notice. Let me know immediately if word comes regarding Yata Misaki's condition. Do not get into arguments with the Homra members, but discourage them from harassing the hospital staff if they should become agitated. Notify Lieutenant Awashima if any trouble starts."

"Yes, sir."

He heard footsteps down what was probably half the length of that adjacent corridor before two Sceptre 4 squad members emerged and strode off in the other direction, away from Weismann. The Silver king stepped quietly towards the opening of the passageway they had come from, and found himself looking at Munakata's tall, elegant figure from behind, in full uniform, standing at the halfway point of the corridor – probably far enough not to notice Weismann's presence yet. Especially since his full attention seemed to be on the lone figure in one of the ugly green plastic seats lining the passageway.

Fushimi Saruhiko was hunched over a laptop balanced on his knees, tapping at it briskly. He looked to be in a terrible state. _Like death warmed over_ , as Weismann thought. His face, normally already pale, was almost white, and although the black frames of his glasses were blocking his eyes from this angle, hints of awful dark circles were visible on the skin behind the lenses. His uniform was creased, and even against the deep blue of the fabric, Weismann could see that the cuffs were stained with blood – Yata's, most likely. His hair – which the Silver king remembered wasn't normally terribly neat, anyway – was more of a mess than usual, with a few spiky, congealed ends suggesting that he might have dragged his blood-stained hands unawares through his locks. Smears of dried blood marred his cheeks too.

Munakata stood in silence watching his third in command, who did not seem to register his king's presence at all, and Weismann wondered if the Sceptre 4 captain planned to just stare at the young man until it was time for the meeting. But the next moment, Munakata moved, walking with remarkably soft footfalls, towards a door that Weismann saw led to a men's washroom. He reappeared in less than half a minute and resumed his position in the corridor, just waiting and watching Fushimi. When Fushimi finally stopped tapping on the keys and scroller and folded the laptop screen down, Munakata approached him, causing Fushimi to look up with a start – he had truly barely noted anyone else's proximity.

"Are you ready for the meeting, Fushimi-kun?" Munakata asked.

"Yes, Captain," Fushimi mumbled, getting to his feet and immediately appearing to regret doing so, because Munakata was standing very close to him, effectively trapping him against the row of plastic seats.

"Don't move," Munakata told him.

"Huh?"

"Don't move," the Blue king repeated, lifting his right hand, which Weismann saw held a white handkerchief – Munakata must have gone to the washroom to dampen it under the tap, because he was now wiping the blood smears off Fushimi's face with it.

"What… _tch_ … C-Captain – stop, I can do that myself," Fushimi stuttered irritably, squirming and trying to push Munakata's hand away.

"I said not to move, and that's an _order_ ," Munakata told him sternly, continuing to dab gently at the stains on Fushimi's cheeks before folding the damp handkerchief over and meticulously wiping the dried blood off his hair too. One long-fingered hand cradled Fushimi's face to hold his head steady while the other worked on those dark locks. Finally, he folded the square of fabric once more to apply it to the stains marking the younger man's cuffs.

Fushimi, looking like a disgruntled child, scowled but held still.

"It won't all come off your coat without a proper laundering, but this will have to do for now," Munakata stated, stepping back when he was done. "Go to Room 5 and let Akiyama set up. I will join you once Awashima-kun is ready."

Fushimi mumbled something Weismann couldn't make out and got away from Munakata in a manner suggestive of escape.

Weismann slipped into the corridor parallel to the one he'd been watching, and managed to avoid the preoccupied Fushimi's notice as he strode past him to the conference room. Feeling certain that Munakata would stroll out to the main corridor to watch Fushimi walking away, the Silver king wisely wandered off in the other direction to reach Room 5 in a more roundabout way.

"Anna-chan," Weismann greeted the Red king once he entered the room, taking a second to glance at Fushimi, who was already seated at the large rectangular table and hooking up his laptop to the projector with the help of the aforementioned Akiyama. "Are you all right?"

"Weismann," she said softly as she stroked Neko's hair – for his kitten was clinging to the girl around the waist and had obviously been crying, clearly affected by what she had heard of the danger Anna had been in. "I tried to gather the scattered power a second time, but I couldn't."

"So I heard," the Silver king said mildly, seating himself beside her and patting Neko on the head to comfort her, observing at the same time a subtle shake of Kuroh's head which he could interpret as meaning that it was best not to say anything to Neko at the moment as she had only just calmed down. "Don't be troubled by that. The dispersed powers of the slate answered you when you most needed them, and I understand that they responded in a multitude of colours – so they accepted you as not only a king chosen by one of its hues, but a vessel worthy of every aspect of its strength."

"But Misaki… I couldn't summon the power to stop his bleeding…" she said in a subdued voice.

"Anna-chan, I believe you drew the powers to you to achieve a barrier you needed their help to build in order to protect Yata-san. But you have always had the vision that tells you the innermost truth of conscious things, so I believe something in you knew that Yata-san was somehow going to be all right, and that told the powers that you no longer needed them."

"But I didn't know that – I couldn't see Misaki's fate – it was clouded, and I was afraid he would die."

"Oh? Is it still clouded?"

Anna nodded.

"But others' fates aren't?"

"Most aren't. Some are," she said, and her eyes flicked across the table towards Fushimi, who was staring at his cables and screens and ignoring everyone else, even Akiyama who was assisting him.

"Ah," said Weismann, with a tiny smile of understanding. "Anna-chan, I think this 'clouding' may have more to do with, erm, _other_ matters besides immediate impending death…"

The girl looked at him, scrutinising him in a way that he might have found extremely uncomfortable 70 years ago, when he was a skittish fellow. But having lived through strange times and seen so many amazing things, Adolf K. Weismann found himself able to bear up under the penetrating gaze of a Strain king who somehow knew the _truth_ of everything he was saying, yet at the same time was still a little too young to grasp the full _significance_ behind his words.

A moment later, the Blue king and Awashima Seri entered, the Lieutenant wearing a calm expression on her face that reflected her satisfaction with the outcome of whatever arm-twisting she had carried out on the hospital director.

"Good afternoon," Munakata greeted everyone evenly. Akiyama snapped to attention, but Fushimi remained seated, tapping his laptop scroller, not even looking at his two superiors.

The Blue king took the seat next to Fushimi's, and Weismann watched with interest as Sceptre 4's third in command deliberately angled his swivel chair away from his captain.

"I suppose Munakata-san is one of the cloudy ones too at the moment?" Weismann whispered to Anna.

Anna nodded solemnly again, and Weismann's knowing smile deepened a little.

…

Munakata did not consider the presence of Bandou Saburouta and Akagi Shouhei necessary. He would have preferred the Red king to have only her second in command at the meeting. But if Kushina and Kusanagi were basing their selection of attendees on who had witnessed the incident, he supposed it was acceptable.

Yatogami Kuroh and Ameno Miyabi had nothing to do with this, but it was fair for the Silver king to want his clansmen present this time. Besides, it appeared that the cat-human Strain and the Red king had grown attached to each other of late, and the teenage girl was clearly upset that her younger friend had come so close to being badly hurt.

Munakata and Awashima had asked Akiyama to stay and take minutes although he, too, was not strictly required. A small portion of Munakata's reasoning – which he acknowledged was rather petty one-upmanship – was to ensure that the Blue clan did not have fewer members present than the Red. Fortunately, he could base his decision on Akiyama's doing a perfectly acceptable job as acting captain in the Jungle crisis. First-hand information might be important for him during this period, when Fushimi would be investigating the telekinesis cases and worrying about Yata Misaki.

So eleven there were in the conference room, listening now to the Red king's account of what she had experienced this morning. Her strong sense of the scattered power of the Dresden Slate, and her certainty that what she had wielded was indeed that familiar slate's power – and not some other force – was their first solid clue that the potency which had imbued the rock was still in existence, and not utterly lost with the destruction of the physical slab.

Weismann asked Anna several questions about how the power felt, and enquired of Kusanagi, Bandou and Akagi what they had seen of the "shield" she had summoned, pencilling his observations into a notebook with dog-eared pages.

Munakata could tell at once that Weismann was trying to calculate, through his questions about its intensity compared to Red aura, whether the power was continuing to hover around the beings who had once drawn on it (that is, whether it was remaining in the Kanto region) or dispersing to the far corners of the universe; whether the kings might now be able to wield the aspects of different colours instead of only their own; whether these aspects were working in harmony or warring with one another; and what had changed about the power.

Ultimately, the Silver king's fundamental – but unverbalised – questions were: _Can we reliably draw on it again? Will it be different if and when we use it? Has the "consciousness" of the power altered from what we knew it to be in the slate? Is it still burdening me with an immortality I do not want?_

Those matters would be for them all to investigate in the coming days. For now, the next pressing matter at hand was the telekinesis abilities that were being developed through the app Fushimi had informed Munakata about at 4am.

As Fushimi projected an image of the app's icon – an orange and yellow silhouette of a human head with a hand reaching out of it – onto the screen, Munakata gave everyone a quick rundown of their findings thus far:

Fushimi's questioning of the first telekinetic suspect arrested yesterday and currently incarcerated in the Sceptre 4 cells, had revealed that the programme had been available for at least two months. Anecdotally, from online exchanges Fushimi had quickly scanned through last night, the app seemed to be available only to devices registered locally – no one had reported being able to download it in other countries. And what was more curious was that based on limited checks Fushimi had done – consistent with Akagi Shouhei's experience – whoever was controlling the app's accessibility seemed to have blocked devices registered to known clansmen.

"This suggests that the app's developer has access to data on clan members, down to which devices are registered to them," Munakata finished before handing over the next part of the briefing to a reluctant Fushimi.

"To the best of my knowledge, only two databases exist containing such comprehensive information – the legitimate one on the servers controlled by the Gold clan, while the other would have been info hacked from various sources and stored on the Green king's servers," Fushimi said, sounding as if he would rather be anywhere else than giving a briefing here. "Captain Munakata's initial investigations this morning, in cooperation with his senior Gold clan contacts, so far show no breach of their data, not even during the difficult period coinciding with the Gold king's disappearance. So if the details weren't from there, it could mean that someone managed to retrieve data from Jungle's servers before they were destroyed."

"A former J-rank member of Jungle?" asked Kusanagi.

"Possible," Fushimi acknowledged. "But we've been monitoring Mishakuji Yukari and Gojou Sukuna for weeks, and they've been living quietly. Besides, this isn't their style. Even if you were to tell me that the Green and Grey kings somehow survived the final battle, I'd still tell you that the way that app is set up and how it works simply doesn't have their flavour either – and don't even mention the Strain parrot. I'd say it's more likely that someone else stole the data. And the most likely time for this to have been even remotely possible was in the brief period when Hisui Nagare, Iwafune Tenkei, Mishakuji, Gojou and Kotosaka were all engaged in combat with the other clans, just before the servers themselves were crushed in the building's collapse following the destruction of the slate."

"Another former Jungle member, then? A U-ranker?" Kuroh suggested.

"My first obvious suspect was Oogai Aya," Fushimi said sullenly, the name of his second cousin clearly having unpleasant associations. "However, this doesn't have her fingerprints on it – it's not her style. It's far too crudely executed and insufficiently sly as well as insufficiently playful. Neither is it Hirasaka Douhan's modus operandi or primary area of expertise."

"It's crudely executed?" Weismann asked curiously.

"Like a sledgehammer for chiselling a figurine," Fushimi muttered in disapproval, and Munakata had no doubt he was thinking how much more beautifully he would have done it. "It's haphazard, open to anyone in Japan except us, apparently – and our first psychokinetic suspect said that only after level 10 – which took him six weeks to reach – did the app pop a message up instigating him to use his new powers to take revenge on people who had done him wrong. And only at level 11, which took him a further two weeks, did another pop-up give a spiel on how – and I quote – 'there have always been superpowered humans among us, but they have selfishly refused to share those powers with mankind, then they selfishly destroyed the source and hope of those powers, so I now offer you a chance to develop your own, and you should now make trouble for the selfish ones who tried to keep you weak'."

"Someone with knowledge of the slate and clans, then," Kusanagi sighed. "And of course the 'selfish ones' would be us?"

"Yes, the message specifically named Sceptre 4, Homra and major organisations headed or owned by members of the Gold clan," Fushimi confirmed, projecting a screenshot of the message. "In the case of our first suspect, he eventually applied his new powers to threatening a former employer who had fired him, when he spotted the man dining in a restaurant yesterday. He wrecked the entire restaurant. When I questioned him last night, long after his powers had worn off, he said the app's level 11 message had suggested that creating a ruckus in a public place would also be a good way of troubling Sceptre 4. However, he admitted that he didn't know now why he had taken it to such extremes. He said a kind of madness overtook him."

"That seems to confirm what Anna said about the man we faced this morning," Kusanagi remarked, his words accompanied by a nod from his king. "Anna said she sensed his madness – and anyone in his right mind would agree it was a tremendous overreaction to seriously attempt to kill a young man and a little girl just because a batch of fish was rejected by an eatery."

"That's another reason why the app is unlikely to be the work of any of the Jungle members we've discussed so far," Fushimi said. "All of them may have committed mischief and sought to enable anarchic individual growth at the expense of society, but none of them aimed to cause deliberate harm to the millions of ordinary individuals they wished to expose to the slate's runaway powers. For them, it was more a case of letting people just run with whatever abilities they could awaken in themselves, and hope for the best. This app and its games, however, are different."

"How so?" Weismann enquired.

"They systematically destroy their users' sanity," Fushimi answered bluntly.

This drew a gasp from Akagi: "My young cousin is playing those games! He's at level three!"

"Tell him to stop, but don't get your panties in a twist yet," Fushimi grumbled. "The effects take a while to set in."

"I'm at level _eight_ ," Akagi mumbled.

"The app games don't affect anyone whose brains have already undergone the changes and development we've experienced as a result of exposure to the slate's powers," Fushimi revealed.

"But how can you be certain that madness is an effect when we've only encountered two people who've suffered it?" Weismann questioned.

"Because I've researched and developed such games myself," Fushimi said, dropping that bomb into the meeting as if he were casually reporting what he had eaten for breakfast.

"I beg your _pardon_?" Kusanagi asked in astonishment.

"In the years before Misa… before Yata and I even knew about the existence of the Dresden Slate, kings and clans, we were just two kids who wanted power to… I don't know… take over the world, I suppose. The sort of stuff naïve kids dream of," Fushimi shrugged. "Aside from starting my attempts to hack Jungle's server for the challenge of it in those years, I also researched the scientific possibility of developing superpowers through brain training."

"Wait, wait – this was before you joined Homra – when you were, what? Fifteen?" Kusanagi asked incredulously, as Munakata did his best not to smirk like a proud father.

"Thereabouts," Fushimi muttered impatiently. "Yata was in on my Jungle-hacking plans, but I kept the brain-training research from him, because I didn't like what I found."

"You found _baaad_ stuff?!" Neko cried, her mismatched eyes round as saucers.

"What do you mean, Fushimi-san?" Weismann asked, stroking Neko's hair to settle her.

"After weeding out all the useless research done by cut-rate scientists and psychologists on worthless training to develop the 90% of the brain that old studies erroneously claimed ordinary humans never use in daily life, I was left with only a handful of state- and military-level experiments that could theoretically work. The exercises they used to target areas of the brain that could potentially enhance human power beyond natural abilities were very similar to the exercises on this new app. All the researchers behind these studies knew exactly what they needed to do, and to some extent, how to do it. But none of them were able to complete those final steps required to translate the exercises into workable ones."

"What were they lacking?" Awashima asked.

"Imagination," Fushimi stated tersely. "They were able to devise exercises that would trigger activity in specific areas of the brain in specific combinations that they knew would work. But they didn't know how to translate the activity into development."

"Please explain," Awashima requested.

"An oversimplified analogy would be the difference between correct form and superficial effect in physical exercises. To make a muscle develop as you intend, you have to perform the right movements in the right way, isolating and working the relevant muscle instead of just going through outward motions that move the associated body part, but which are actually relying largely on other sets of muscles to create the movement," Fushimi explained. "But that's still not a close-enough analogy. A closer, yet less precise, way of putting it would be the difference between a regular human merely assuming a particular physical position, and an expert like a grandmaster in yoga, _chi_ and martial-arts meditation assuming that identical position. The regular human would achieve little more than a physical response, whereas the grandmaster would trigger controlled effects on the energy channels of his body and derive health and performance benefits from it. Those scientists failed to use their imagination to go beyond mere surface effects of activating the correct brain areas. They failed to make that further stretch into understanding how to truly _hone_ those activated areas. Their imagination failed them."

"But yours didn't, I take it," Weismann said.

"I worked out what was needed to bridge the gap, and I started crafting a series of brain exercises that built on theirs."

"But…?" Kusanagi prompted.

"I stopped the moment I deduced something else."

"What was that?"

"Practising those exercises over an extended period of time would gradually erode all those aspects of the brain that are beyond its purely physical structures and chemicals – in other words, the very immaterial aspects being honed and developed. In short, such training would make its practitioners lose everything that made them who they were. It would drive them insane. So I stopped all further work in this area. Shortly after, Yata and I joined Homra, and the powers we awakened there were so far beyond any clumsy developing of psychokinetic abilities through brain training that I never looked at my research again. But someone else did."

"You mean…" Awashima began, sounding alarmed.

"My first serious attack on the Jungle server was also the first time I realised that the Green king knew what I was doing and had targeted me in return. He made use of Oogai's familiarity with me to infect me with a virus that was both computer-based and clan-superpowered, and he almost certainly accessed information on all my devices at some point. My brain-training programme must have been stolen too and stored on Jungle's server, although the Green clan never used it. Why should they, when such a method was so clunky and outmoded compared with clan powers? I don't believe it was ever used – until now, when this unknown party in turn stole it from Jungle and adapted the exercises. They're really badly adapted, though – they'll work a lot faster than my original version, but the effects are also much more brutal."

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" Kusanagi asked.

"Yes," Fushimi replied in a voice that bordered on the strangled, although he maintained steady eye contact with his former Homra comrades. "My research was the foundation for the psychokinetic abilities developed by the man who almost killed Misaki this morning."


	5. Care

**Care**

"…shimi-kun… Fushimi-kun. We've arrived."

He became conscious of the other man's voice at the same time as he registered that someone had just leaned across him. And for the second time tonight – no, it was the early hours of the morning – his half-asleep brain had remembered that he was not to reach for his knives.

He blinked his tired eyes open to find, to his embarrassment, that Munakata had already parked the car at Sceptre 4 headquarters, turned the engine off, walked round to the passenger side, reached over his lap to unbuckle his seat belt, and was now holding the door open for him.

All this was perceived in a visual blur, because it was dark, and the bloody man had confiscated his spectacles.

"Can I have my glasses back, please?" he mumbled irritably.

"Only if you give me your word that you will go straight to bed after your bath," Munakata replied. "You haven't had proper sleep in almost 43 hours."

"Captain, there's a lot to do. I need to trace the app developer, hunt him down…"

"Fushimi-kun, we have already secured an agreement from the major app stores to block this programme."

"This person bypassed all their initial levels of security by slipping his unregistered programme in there months ago, and he can do it again –"

"Yes, but not for now," Munakata said. "So, your word that you'll go to bed at once after washing up."

"No."

"Then I shall be holding on to these," Munakata stated, slipping Fushimi's glasses into his inside breast pocket.

" _Tch._ Suit yourself," Fushimi snapped. "I have a spare pair, anyway."

"And I know where you keep it," the captain revealed cheerfully. "In the state you're in, it's more than a fair bet that I'll get there first, wouldn't you agree?"

"You'll still have to return that pair now, because you know very well I can't see my way into the building in this darkness without them," Fushimi pointed out. "Not unless you want me to fall flat on my face at some point."

"That won't happen," Munakata assured him. "Because I'll escort you right to your doorstep."

To Fushimi's disbelief, the slightly hazy figure of his captain angled his left arm outwards, the way Western gentlemen offered their arms to ladies at formal events.

"You don't honestly think I'm taking your arm to stroll back into the dorm like you're my _date_ ," Fushimi spoke dryly. It wasn't a question.

"Then promise me you'll be in bed and asleep within 30 minutes."

"Forget it," Fushimi growled, groping around the floorboard for the black nylon case that held his laptop and tablet, snatching it up, and clambering out of the passenger seat unaided, moving to brush past Munakata in a huff – only to trip on some treacherous stone or other object that had obviously chosen to make itself invisible. He flailed for a moment, virtually blind but stubbornly gripping the case with his right hand, and would have landed on his nose had Munakata not deftly caught him.

Fushimi instantly felt his face burning as he was steadied by his captain's strong arms, one hand under his right elbow, the other arm around his waist. He clung with humiliating helplessness to Munakata's lapels, so close to the captain that he could feel against his forehead the warmth of the other man's body radiating off his chest. That heat further fanned the flames suffusing his cheeks, but Fushimi, being Fushimi, still seized advantage of this awkward position to apply his street smarts, and righted his posture quickly – after adroitly picking the Blue king's pocket with his free hand.

Coolly slipping his spectacles back on, his hand concealing his blush until he could turn away, Fushimi strode towards the building, saying: "Thanks for the ride."

The sound of the car door shutting and the beep of the vehicle being locked preceded the captain's falling easily into step beside him.

"As I ought to have expected of my hidden-weapon user," Munakata murmured, shaking his head, although he did not seem displeased. Quite the contrary, in fact, with that unreasonably satisfied smile.

Fushimi's face was still burning, for sure, but at least he'd pulled that one off against the captain. However, he reflected that the debacle of his near-fall and the resulting embrace by his boss wouldn't have had to happen if Munakata hadn't taken his glasses away to begin with, after catching him slumped over the edge of Misaki's hospital bed at two in the morning…

…

He'd felt blessedly warm in a way he'd rarely known. Despite the fatigue weighing down his bones, he clearly remembered sternly telling himself as he'd drifted off that he was _not_ to reach for his knives if startled. Which meant that he was not only warm, but safe.

So he didn't jump when a hand touched his hair gently and another tried to slide his glasses out from under his right hand. _Ah, it's them._

Fushimi opened his eyes to Misaki's hospital room. He was in a chair beside the bed, where he'd dozed off with his head on his arms and his left hand lying lightly on Misaki's left leg – his only uninjured limb.

"Saruhiko-kun," came the kind voice of the one who had touched his hair. "I'm sorry, we didn't mean to wake you, but we were afraid you'd crush your glasses."

" _Misaki no okaasan_ ," Fushimi mumbled as Misaki's mother's face swam into focus once he slipped his spectacles on after stopping the person who'd touched his hand – Yata Minoru – from easing them away.

"Saru," the 12-year-old boy said softly, which sounded unnatural because he and his entire family were usually so loud. "You were gripping your spectacles quite hard."

 _Saru_. It was how this brat and his now eight-year-old sister had always addressed him in their incorrigibly informal way. Although it should have set him off violently from the start because it echoed how that man Niki had terrorised his childhood, he'd let these two little ones call him the same ugly name simply because they were Misaki's half-siblings, small children who'd never meant harm.

Strangely enough, his tolerance had paid off. Their cries of "Saru! Saru!" as well as Misaki's angrily calling him a monkey when they'd clashed as enemies had somehow purified that detested name for him. Niki and his malice were over. Even Anna had confirmed it a few weeks back when he'd stepped into the Homra bar and she'd told him with a happy smile that "the ghost is gone".

"Saruhiko-kun, you must be so tired – won't you please sleep on the couch?" Misaki's mother urged with the same warm smile she had always given him – when he was a middle-schooler, and just a month ago, when Misaki had dragged him home at her insistence.

"I'm fine… has Misaki…" Fushimi turned to his friend – who was asleep, looking small and vulnerable in the bed.

"Nii-chan hasn't woken up since you both dozed off," Minoru told him.

"Of course he hasn't, Minoru," their mother said. "Your brother and Saruhiko-kun are exhausted."

Misaki had gone through a gruelling six-hour operation, a large part of which was spent on microsurgery to reattach the torn veins, tendons and nerves of his left hand, from which his ring finger had nearly been severed. The microsurgeon reported that all had gone well despite the difficulty of repairing tear injuries from a blunt edge compared with clean cuts inflicted by a sharp edge.

He'd been wheeled into a post-anaesthesia care unit with no visitors allowed. But after he'd started coming round about an hour after the operation, his parents and Kusanagi had been surprised when he was transferred to a private room instead of a regular four- to six-bed ward.

Although Misaki had once revealed that Minoru knew he'd been a wielder of Red aura, the rest of the family was in the dark. So Kusanagi – trying to spare the parents and little Megumi details about Homra and the clans – had discreetly asked an administrator in the doorway of the private room: "We want the best for my… employee, of course, but I don't recall that the insurance I bought for my workers covered this class of ward…?"

Even Misaki's mother, sensible woman that she was, had asked in bafflement: "Who's paying for this? Kusanagi-san, Misaki never tells us anything about his life, but I thought you said he was working for you in a very _small_ catering business? And I still don't understand who that man was who hurt him so badly and _why_ – Saruhiko-kun, you said your police unit would send someone to tell us soon…?"

Awashima had made a timely appearance then, obviously having hurried over from another round of urgent meetings with the captain, the hospital director, the special squad, and possibly members of the Gold clan to make arrangements for security, blocking the app, tracing its advanced users, and making plans to tackle such people if they surfaced.

The lieutenant stepped right up to prevent further bewilderment by confidently giving Misaki's parents a speech that left Fushimi in disbelief. She'd stated with every ounce of her impressive blend of compassion and authority: "Yata-san, I apologise for not being able to give you an update before this, for reasons of the integrity of our investigations. Yata Misaki is being warded in a private room at the request of Annex 4 of the Tokyo Legal Affairs Bureau, of which I am lieutenant. We are doing this for security reasons, because your son's and his colleagues' roles in the Shizume City Neighbourhood Watch Ground Unit have made them a target of criminals who have been harassing businesses in the area. Yata Misaki had, I'm afraid to say, too impulsively rushed to the aid of a restaurant owner under attack by a heavily armed criminal this morning, which led to his sustaining severe injuries. Annex 4 will post personnel here in shifts to ensure your son's safety while he recuperates, so our requirements would inconvenience other patients and the staff if he were warded in a shared space. His employer's medical insurance benefits can therefore be channelled more fully towards the cost of the operation itself, as the hospital will be charging only the regular ward and services rate for this room. Your family and his colleagues are free to remain with him even outside visiting hours, provided no more than four people are in his room at any time. Our unit is working to apprehend the mastermind behind these attacks so that no one else gets hurt like this. I wish your son a speedy recovery. Annex 4 looks forward to continued cooperation with him and his team to maintain order in Shizume City."

 _The Shizume City Neighbourhood Watch Ground Unit?_ Good grief. Fushimi had to resist dropping his face into his palm with a groan. Really? Homra, your friendly neighbourhood-watch team?

But he seriously had to hand it to the lieutenant. As far-fetched as her explanation was, and as doubtful as Misaki's mother was that her son was an upstanding member of society, Awashima's tone and military bearing had brooked no contradiction. The family seemed to be more or less buying it for now.

Misaki was waking up more fully, and the nurses and technicians were almost done arranging the contraptions around his bed. The nurse in charge soon announced that the patient could now receive two visitors at a time, until he was rested enough to receive four – perhaps in the morning.

His mother and Minoru, then his stepfather and Megumi, were the first to go in. Kusanagi and Anna were next, and Kamamoto brusquely but not unkindly offered to go in with Fushimi after that. Fushimi declined, though, hanging back to let the Homra gang take turns to say hello.

At the same time, Kusanagi drew up a rota to ensure that at least two Homra members would be here at all times. Awashima correspondingly arranged for Sceptre 4 members from the general swordsmen division and special squad to be on duty in rotation – since the game had specifically made targets of Homra and the Blue clan, security _was_ required for Misaki, and the Blues could also keep the more hot-headed Reds in check.

Homra might look askance at such "protection", asking how much better Sceptre 4 could do the job than them now that both clans had lost their slate-given auras. However, Fushimi knew Munakata and his influential Gold clan contacts had planned for such eventualities, and still had cards up their sleeves.

Like what was being done at the Nanakamado research facility. That place might have caused suffering for Anna and countless Strains in the past, but since the Gold clan had overseen processes better to prevent abuse, they'd come up with pretty smart stuff like the power-suppressing bangle made for the Strain baby once abandoned at Sceptre 4's gate.

Fushimi had been in the know, too, when they'd started developing defensive products by extrapolating from the qualities of the power-controlling shackles used to subdue Strain criminals – in case Sceptre 4 faced lawbreakers in future wielding powers similar to those of Strains, yet not from the slate, they would need "superpowered" equipment to protect themselves and control the suspects. Their swords had just been imbued with the results of that research, and lightweight shields were in production. Damn, they'd look like pompously-dressed riot police once they started running around with those shields, but if it was necessary…

Misaki's mother had interrupted Fushimi's thoughts then by touching his arm to say that her son was asking for him. She added: "I've sent my husband and daughter home for the night to rest. My husband won't have to work tomorrow as it's his day off, so he and Megumi can take over in the morning. Tonight, it'll be me and Minoru here. But you haven't seen him yet, Saruhiko-kun."

So Fushimi had entered the room to find Misaki looking like a pale child in that bed, chestnut hair bright against the white pillowcase. His hazel eyes lit up when he saw Fushimi, and he hoarsely murmured a "Hey".

Fushimi approached, soaking up Misaki's gaze before tearing his eyes away to survey the state he was in. His right arm and right leg were in splints to prevent damage from sudden movement; his left hand was swathed in bandages, the entire arm elevated in a sling suspended from above his bed to promote fluid drainage and prevent swelling. A lightly-heated pack was in the sling, and the room was kept warm too, to encourage blood circulation in his left hand – a nurse would check every hour to ensure the tissues were healthy.

When his mother went off to check on Minoru, who was getting drinks from the vending machine in the lounge area down the hallway, Misaki was left alone with Fushimi.

"Hey," Misaki repeated.

"Hnn?"

"Saru – before you beat yourself up any more than I see you've already done, let me say this clearly: It's not your fault. Kusanagi-san and Anna told me about the games. Hell, you look in worse shape than I do."

"It's my responsibility," Fushimi said.

"Don't give me that shit again," Misaki said with what fierceness and exasperation his weakened voice and body would allow. "You're doing that _same_ bloody thing you did when we failed to hack Jungle's server when we were kids – you just took the whole burden of failure on your shoulders even though both of us agreed to the plan. Stop it. Am I the only one who's grown up here?"

"Heh," Fushimi huffed with little mirth. "I did tell you once that I never said I wanted to grow up."

"You're _proving_ it, idiot monkey," Misaki grumbled.

The brief exchange seemed to do the positive work Misaki intended, for the mood lightened, and Fushimi sat at his friend's bedside.

"I'll stop whoever's behind this," he stated softly, staring at the white sheets with the peach-coloured duvet over them as if they were suddenly a fascinating sight.

"I know you will," Misaki returned with a conviction that forced Fushimi to raise his head and meet his eyes. It was as if they were back in their teens, with Misaki telling him how amazing he was. Except that his friend was no longer the naïve boy who'd looked at Fushimi's brilliance out of eyes full of starlight. The Misaki of today had survived worlds of hurt and come back, expanded his little universe far beyond Fushimi – and he _still_ wanted to be his best friend and _still_ believed in him.

"It's hard to trace where this app is being uploaded from, though," Fushimi mused. "This person seems to have covered his tracks using something more than mere computer skills."

"You mean…?"

"Yeah," Fushimi replied. "It may not be anywhere near the Green king's level, but this person has somehow clumsily 'infused' his dissemination of the programme with more-than-human powers and concealed his location with them too – Kusanagi and Anna didn't have time to tell you this part of it, I suppose. But yes, it's probably a Strain – one who understood the workings of the slate well enough to adapt my programme into one that would 'read between the lines' of clansmen's former powers in order to not be usable by them. It's just not designed for our brains, only for regular humans."

"Which all means that stopping him is gonna be one hell of a job."

"Yes."

"Which means it's the perfect job for you," Misaki grinned.

Fushimi didn't know how Misaki could muster that grin, being in as much post-operative discomfort as he had to be, but it made something in his heart clench painfully, and he had to look away from those shining hazel eyes again so he wouldn't do something embarrassing like smile back.

"By the way, before I forget: You're an utter moron for rushing in like that," Fushimi growled. "Couldn't you have waited for the other guys to back you up?"

"But I was there _first_ …"

"You haven't changed a scrap. You were always charging into the fray and simply assuming that I would cover you, which drove me _batshit_."

"Wha – y-you never said -" Misaki stammered, eyes wide.

" _Tch._ I'm saying it now. Clearly. As requested."

"I – I…"

"You no longer have me covering your back every day, so for pity's sake, use your brain a bit more."

"I… well…" Misaki was reddening. "I'll… try?"

"If you didn't already have three injured limbs I'd fucking punch you."

"Heh," the other laughed uncertainly, looking as if he very much wanted to scratch the back of his neck in embarrassment, except he couldn't as both his arms were out of commission.

Misaki paused for a moment, then said tentatively: "Hey, Saruhiko, about yesterday, when you came over…"

Fushimi tensed, not wanting to go into the subject though curious about what Misaki would say… but his mother and Minoru returned to the room then, and the conversation couldn't continue in that direction.

But it was with one of the closest feelings he had approaching contentment that Fushimi sat back and watched as Misaki's mother fussed over her eldest son in her pragmatic way, smoothing wayward chestnut strands out of his eyes, holding a cup of water to his lips, directing Minoru to the other side of the bed to help his brother scratch an itchy spot on his left shoulder, and offering him a bite of onigiri.

This was the innocence of the perfectly ordinary family Fushimi had wanted to protect from the poison of his own by never mentioning Niki or Kisa, refusing to tell them about Niki's funeral, and never revealing the horrors of his childhood.

Yet somehow, Misaki's mother had sensed his situation. Although she'd never probed, she had simply accepted him as her son's best friend with the same warmth with which she treated all her children. Even now, she was handing Fushimi a ball of onigiri, advising him to eat, then nap on the couch because "one of your colleagues", she said, had told her that he'd spent all night investigating criminals. It made that tight spot in Fushimi's chest clench again. He awkwardly thanked her for the food, but rose, checking his watch – it was 9pm – and said he would find a quiet corner to get on with his work.

"Oi, Saruhiko," Misaki called, but Fushimi was out the door and refused to look back.

He had to stop, though, when Misaki's mother hurried after him. "Saruhiko-kun," she said. "I really hope you'll lie down somewhere and sleep. I know you're eager to catch the people behind this, but I don't want you to fall ill. Misaki wouldn't want your health to suffer either. Please."

"I'll just be at the other lounge corner further away from the critical-care wards, where I can safely use my devices," Fushimi answered.

"You're planning to stay overnight?" she asked, lowering her voice, walking closer to him so the Homra pair in the seats along the corridor – Fujishima and Eric – and the Sceptre 4 duo on guard a few feet beyond them – Kamo and Doumyouji – wouldn't hear every word. "I wish you would return to your dormitory to rest. But if you'll really be here, promise me you'll come back into the room later to sleep."

"Mm," he murmured noncommittally and walked away.

As he passed Kamo and Doumyouji, the former spoke: "Fushimi-san, Lieutenant Awashima has messaged me to remind you that you've been awake for 38 hours straight by now, and you are to return to the dorm to rest before sleep deprivation impairs your functions."

"I've got work to do," Fushimi muttered, walking away.

He found a corner in a zone where his equipment couldn't potentially affect sensitive medical equipment, plugged his portable charger into a power point to top it up, forced himself to eat the onigiri though he didn't feel hungry, and continued chipping away on his laptop at the problem of how to trace the person who had taken his programme and twisted it into this disease. His phone beeped after an hour, and he glanced at the incoming message from Awashima ordering him back to the dorm. He ignored it. Let her think he was asleep, or in a zone where he was required to turn off his phone.

But an hour on, Doumyouji sniffed him out to announce energetically: "Fushimi-san! The captain says you're to return to the dorm now, or he'll drag you back there himself."

"Let him," Fushimi muttered uninterestedly before shutting his devices down just so he could get away from the boisterous fellow.

He escaped back into Misaki's room. Minoru was napping in a chair, and his mother was lying on the couch. She sat up when she saw him, but he shook his head and quickly took the other empty chair beside the bed. Misaki had fallen asleep, but his body clock was obviously messed up by the operation and anaesthesia, because he awoke 20 minutes later and asked Fushimi to help him drink some water – his brother and mother had slipped into dreamland by then. Fushimi supported his back, held the cup to his lips, and tilted it carefully to let him sip from it until he'd drunk enough.

Then a nurse cleared by Kamo and Doumyouji came in to administer another dose of painkillers and help him use the bedpan – to the patient's immense embarrassment. His mother, Minoru and Fushimi left the room, and settled back in only a while later, by which time Misaki was tired again and ready to doze off. Fushimi waited for his friend's breathing to even out in that familiar way he'd known from their years sharing the apartment before he shrugged off his coat, removed his glasses and lowered his head to his arms, reminding himself as he drifted off: _It's Misaki's family here… Do not reach for your knives…_

At 1am, Fushimi awoke to Misaki's mother and Minoru trying to save his spectacles. Another hour later, he awoke again to the sound of Misaki's murmuring. The others were asleep, so, thinking his friend was awake and asking for something, he leaned over to ask: "What was that?"

But the murmured words from Misaki revealed that he was dreaming, because what Fushimi heard him utter was: "Mikoto-san… don't go…"

Fushimi drew back, felt his heart clench in a completely different way from earlier, and sank into his chair, suddenly experiencing every ounce of his tiredness. He sighed and dropped his head to the mattress again in what felt terribly like resignation – and that was when he sensed another person's presence.

Munakata was standing in the doorway, still in uniform. He must have silently opened the door as Fushimi was asking Misaki what he'd said – and must have heard Mikoto-san's name, as well as seen Fushimi's body language. If the mention of Suoh affected Munakata, he didn't show it. He only looked straight at Fushimi and inclined his head in a wordless command to leave.

 _I'll do all I can to beckon you forward…_ Munakata's words from their strange conversation in the office last night sprang unbidden to Fushimi's mind as he got silently to his feet, pulled his coat back on and picked up his laptop case, then quietly slipped out of the room at Munakata's heels.

The captain acknowledged Fujishima and Eric with a nod, and said goodnight to Kamo and Doumyouji as he passed them. Doumyouji gave Fushimi a childish grimace of sympathy, which Fushimi pointedly and equally childishly ignored.

"Oh my, Fushimi-kun," Munakata murmured once they were past all the wards and could freely speak without waking any patients. "I've never had to personally drag one of my men back to headquarters before."

"It's not the returning to headquarters I object to, captain," Fushimi said stiffly. "It's the order implicit in it to stop working."

"For good reason," Munakata countered. "You'll be no use to Yata-san or anyone else if you become incapacitated. Your constitution is hardly robust, as Awashima-kun accurately notes."

Fushimi did not answer. They walked in silence, Fushimi a half-step behind Munakata, feeling increasingly dead on his feet despite the naps he'd stolen in Misaki's room. Once they reached the car park, he spotted the Sceptre 4 car normally used by the captain, but saw no driver waiting there – Munakata had driven himself out, and would personally drive Fushimi back to HQ.

 _Great._

The captain unlocked the car remotely. Fushimi, resigned to an annoying ride, headed for the passenger side. He was just reaching for the handle when Munakata glided smoothly past him like water slipping round a rock, and opened the door for him.

He stood there staring blankly at the man. Munakata only smiled beatifically and inclined his head again, at an angle this time, like a gentleman inviting a lady into his carriage.

Right. This was weird. Fushimi's brain, unfortunately, felt more or less like it was swimming in sludge right now, so he could only gape at the captain for a few seconds before climbing into the passenger seat in silence. Munakata closed the door after him, walked round by the front of the car, and slipped behind the wheel.

The Blue king checked that Fushimi was belted up, strapped himself in, and drove out of the hospital grounds. Fushimi had his tablet out and on even before they were past the main gate, and he was continuing his work when Munakata unexpectedly pulled up in a side lane.

"What…?" Fushimi began when the car stopped.

The captain didn't wait for him to finish asking the question before answering it by leaning right over to his seat – Fushimi fleetingly had the _most irrational_ panicked thought that the man was going to _kiss_ him. But what the Blue king did in one neat, fluid move was to lift his third in command's spectacles off his face.

"No working for the next eight hours, Fushimi-kun," Munakata said lightly, pocketing the glasses before pulling back out onto the main road.

Fushimi gasped in outrage, but Munakata had won this round. He couldn't make out a thing on the screen, and his eyes ached like hell, anyway. So he was forced to put his devices away. His eyes began to close too, once there was no point in keeping them open, and before he knew it, he had fallen asleep in the car.

 _That_ was how he had eventually ended up stumbling right into his king's arms back at HQ.

It didn't end there, either. With Awashima – obviously very tired and swaddled in a thick dressing gown – glowering at him for ignoring her messages, Fushimi was forced by Munakata to lock up his laptop and tablet in the office so he wouldn't be tempted to work on them. Then after Awashima veered off to the women's half of the dorm, Munakata walked Fushimi to his room and arranged to meet him in the passageway in precisely one minute so they could shower and bathe.

Fushimi rolled his eyes once the captain's back was turned, but as he tossed his coat on top of the bag he used to hold items for laundering, dropped his knife harnesses, then pulled a fresh T-shirt, clean boxers and sweatpants from the wardrobe, the sludge swamping his brain seemed to clear a bit, and things started to click. By the time he left his room with his change of clothing and a towel, and found the captain waiting there as promised with his own towel and bathrobe, more parts of the puzzle were starting to take shape.

Fetching him personally from the hospital when he could have got someone else to drive. Opening the car door for him. Unfastening his seat belt. Offering him his arm. Tenderly cleaning Misaki's blood off his face and hair. And last night's freaky conversation – which, the more he thought about it, was sounding increasingly like a declaration of intent of a _different_ nature than he'd initially thought.

And as they entered the bathhouse and the captain started to disrobe, Fushimi suddenly knew exactly what this was all about.

…

Fushimi no longer had any idea what this was all about. Because Munakata hadn't jumped him in the bath. Hell, the man hadn't even _glanced_ at him since they'd entered the bathing area. Neither had he done anything vaguely suggestive like offer to wash his back. And no, it wasn't because Fushimi had missed the signs since he'd had to remove his glasses to shower, then soak in the hot water – when he was alert in a risky situation, his peripheral vision rose to the challenge and worked just fine even without eyewear, thank you very much.

No, they'd simply scrubbed down in silence at separate shower stations, then they'd sat in the bath which normally wasn't heated or lit this late – but the captain sometimes ordered it kept ready at all hours during periods when several units were working overtime. This probably qualified as one.

Munakata wasn't sporting a hard-on either – _not_ that he'd stared at the man or anything, but he could _just tell_. He looked as fucking serene as he always did. It was Fushimi whose mind was racing into overdrive trying to rejig the puzzle now that it no longer matched his initial insight into it.

So all that seriously weird _courtship behaviour_ – because that's _exactly_ what it was – wasn't leading up to Munakata springing on him a quick fuck in the bath as a cure for his obsession with Suoh as well as, conveniently enough, a handy means of keeping Fushimi's mind off the Suoh-obsessed Misaki?

Apparently not. Because they sat in the hot water at a very respectable distance from each other for about 20 minutes, then Munakata asked neutrally: "Ready to go?" And they'd walked back to the changing area, towelled dry, put on their clean clothes, and returned to their respective bedrooms with nothing more than a "Goodnight, Fushimi-kun" at his door.

Fushimi turned the lock in the dark, climbed the ladder to his bed, lay down to think about the whole bizarre _feel_ of his recent interactions with the captain, and got nowhere. His naps at the hospital and in the car had helped ease his sleep deficit a smidge, so 15 minutes after lying down, he climbed back out of bed quietly, pulled on a soft woollen jacket he sometimes used to keep warm when he got up at strange hours to get work done, and crept across the floor, planning to sneak out of the dorm so he could get his laptop from the office.

Only to open his door to the sight of Munakata standing at his threshold in his dressing gown, smiling calmly, arms comfortably folded behind his back. A few squad members who had apparently returned late from missions, or were headed for the pantry or bathroom, were standing around in the corridor trying not to patently gawk at the sight of the Sceptre 4 captain at the bedroom door of their third in command.

"Fushimi-kun, I believe I gave you an order not to work any more tonight, yet here you are planning to disobey it already," the captain said evenly.

Fushimi sighed: "You said you wouldn't interfere with how I get my work done."

"But I _can_ determine whether you are in a condition to work _at all_ ," he countered. "Besides, this isn't strictly about work. It's about your well-being. Which makes it _personal_ too."

"You're just shifting the business and personal lines to suit your preferences," Fushimi grumbled. "I guess it's all a part of your big plan to re-order the world as it suits you. Well, please leave me out of those plans for now and stop interfering with my job."

Fushimi made to leave his room, but the captain stepped into the doorway, forcing him backwards.

"What?" Fushimi challenged. "You're going to stand here all night?"

"If I have to. Or we can manage this more efficiently with an alternative solution."

Before Fushimi could sarcastically enquire as to what that might be, Munakata had turned to face the open doorway, from where he addressed two of the squad members still lurking in the corridor.

"Fuse-kun, Hidaka-kun," the captain called in the most pleasant, practical tone of voice. "Please come in here. I need you to help me tie Fushimi-kun to his bed."

 _Oh my god._ Fushimi's brain and panic responses completely imploded behind the captain shortly before he reassembled them and sprang over to the door, where Munakata stood as immovable as a military-issue barrier, a good three inches taller than him and – right now – seemingly twice as broad. All Fushimi could do was hiss furiously over the king's shoulder at an absolutely stunned Fuse and Hidaka: "He is NOT tying me to the bed, and this is NOT what you're thinking. Captain – _Captain!_ There will be NO tying of anyone to _any_ beds!"

"But how else will I get you to do what I want, Fushimi-kun?" Munakata turned his head fractionally to ask in the most genuinely innocent manner.

By now, Fuse and Hidaka looked as if their brains were short-circuiting, with Hidaka's cheeks turning scarlet and Fuse wearing an "I- _knew_ -he-was-literally-the-captain's-fucking-favourite-all-this-time" facial expression.

" _Captain!_ Do you even _hear_ what you're saying? Oh my god. Fine! You win! I won't leave my room. I won't work tonight. Okay? Now please just get out of that doorway and stop issuing weird orders to your subordinates!"

"Ah, in that case, Fuse-kun, Hidaka-kun, thank you, but I believe I can have my way with Fushimi-kun without your help after all," Munakata said, beaming sweetly at the two dumbstruck men before shutting the door and turning back to Fushimi, who had retreated to the middle of his room with a groan and could not even find the energy to attempt to correct the appalling impression created by the captain's last line.

"Are you just really _dense_ , or are you just really _evil_?" Fushimi wondered aloud, removing his spectacles and clapping a hand over his eyes.

"I like to think I'm a little of everything," Munakata said, stepping up to him, taking his glasses away and slipping his jacket off his shoulders before steering him towards his bed. "Now, please go to bed, and stay there. Without my having to tie you to it."

"I never knew the captain of Sceptre 4 was so keen on mixing business with _pleasure_ ," he retorted, putting sarcastic emphasis on the word, convinced by now that Munakata wouldn't even get the connotation, as there was every chance that he really was completely dense.

But as Fushimi scaled the ladder to his bed, Munakata said meaningfully: "I believe business and pleasure can sometimes mix very well, Fushimi-kun. But _pleasure_ can wait for another time. Tonight, all I require of you is to rest."

Munakata's matching emphasis on the word and the hint of what he might _require_ from him made Fushimi's face burn even more hotly than when he'd fallen into his arms earlier. He quickly crawled under his blanket and turned to the wall, curling up and thinking about how he needed to reassess his earlier reassessment that the Blue king hadn't wanted anything of _that_ sort from him.

Because maybe he did. Except it was looking as if the captain might want something more than just a quick business-cum-pleasure fumble-cum-distraction-from-Suoh in the bath – or the bedroom, for that matter. And it dawned on Fushimi that maybe he himself wasn't feeling as put off by that idea as he'd thought he would. It all mingled with his lingering pain over Misaki and Suoh, his teeming thoughts about the psychokinesis cases, his guilt over Misaki's injuries, his powerful urge to catch and crush the person who'd so misused his programme, and he now felt truly drained and ready to sleep.

As the chair by his desk creaked, indicating that Munakata was planning to sit there in the dark and literally watch his back as he slept, Fushimi closed his eyes, a little surprised at the discovery that he wouldn't really mind at all if the captain did just that all night.

He slept.


	6. Not The Whole Story

**Not The Whole Story**

Like all members of Sceptre 4, Kamo Ryuho knew the essential facts about the individuals who made up Homra. In fact, the two clans had clashed often enough for them to know a lot more than just the bare facts – countless battles had forced them to quickly work out each guy's fighting style, personality, and expression of Red aura. Then there'd been those surprisingly good periods of cooperation when they'd become familiar off the urban-warfare scene too, and really, there wasn't a lot they didn't know any more.

As one of the special squad, Kamo had access to even more details in the files Sceptre 4 kept on other clans. Among the Homra gang, Yata Misaki's history was especially well known to him and his colleagues, not only because the young hothead was one of the Red clan's most prominent faces with a solid reputation for speed and courage, but also because he was Fushimi-san's old friend from middle school.

Fushimi-san was so hard to understand and get close to that the special squad had built up quite the store of curiosity about their third in command. Finding out more about Yata Misaki was just one of the spin-offs of the probing regularly attempted by the more eager members of their squad, like Hidaka and Doumyouji, as well as the more cynical ones, like Fuse.

For his own part, Kamo didn't much care what made Fushimi Saruhiko tick as long as everyone did their jobs well and didn't trip one another up. By and large, Fushimi-san didn't bother him, and he didn't bother Fushimi-san. But when he had first glanced over Yata Misaki's file, he had made the assumption that the boy had left home at the tender age of 15 to move into a rundown place with Fushimi because of his family situation. It had seemed that way on paper: Mother remarried, then had two children with her new husband, which must have left the sole child from her first marriage out in the cold. It had stuck that way in Kamo's mind because his ex-wife had custody of their daughter, and he feared that his child would face a future in which she might feel unloved or pushed away if her mother should remarry and have other kids.

However, what was plausible on paper wasn't always borne out in real life, Kamo realised. He'd expected tension, indifference, or even hostility when Yata Naoki had come to the hospital early this morning to take over from his wife and son. However, the atmosphere in the patient's room had remained a perfectly normal family one even after Yata Ayaka and 12-year-old Minoru had left.

Kamo had discreetly passed by several times or stood near enough to the door when it was left open to hear what was going on inside, and he saw no aversion from the patient or his stepfather – only the normal, occasional verbal awkwardness one often witnessed between fathers and their grown sons when neither party was particularly skilled in the art of meaningful conversation.

Instead of coldness, Kamo saw and heard thoughtful overtures. The stepfather asked Misaki if he wanted his bed raised any further, and whether he was hungry or thirsty; the younger asked the elder about the cabinet he was fixing at home; they groaned about what a pain it was to have even one finger in a splint, never mind three limbs.

Both men also talked to (and through) little Megumi, asking and answering questions about her latest favourite television programmes, her newest handheld game, the good friend she'd just made in grade school, why she didn't like some of the vegetables Kaa-chan served at meals, and whether Minoru-nii-chan had been of any help at all when she'd had a fight with a boy in her class.

His stepfather mentioned how afraid for him his mother had been during the operation, and Misaki had mumbled that "Kaa-chan said you were really worried too… so, thanks… and I'm really glad you're always there to support her…". The older man had responded: "Do you think Kaa-chan only needs my support? Do you know how happy she was when you finally visited last month with Saruhiko-kun? You know we want you to come home whenever you can – it's your home too. Even if in future I should have to work for a different company and we move out of that house, we'll always have a place for you wherever we live. So when you're discharged, come home to us. We'll look after you while you recover."

"Tou-chan, thanks, but Kaa-chan has enough to do looking after Minoru and Megumi. My friends have already made arrangements for taking care of me until I can at least use my hands again."

"Kaa-chan will be more worried if you _aren't_ being looked after by her. She said so, and I know so."

"It will be fine…"

Such exchanges, which Kamo heard in the hour or so before he and Doumyouji were relieved from their shift, added up to a picture of someone who had no serious issues with his stepdad or half-siblings. Maybe, thought Kamo, Yata Misaki had left home because of "family problems" that had mostly been in his own head. Whereas Fushimi-san's family issues, which he had heard a thing or two about, had apparently been very real and no laughing matter.

Kamo began to think that perhaps he now understood a little more about Fushimi-san's strange move to the Blue clan. It looked to him like Yata Misaki was the sort of kid who might have suffered teenage angst and – considering his small size – minor trust issues from scraps with schoolmates who could have picked on him. But apart from that, he would basically have been a well-adjusted and gregarious child from a regular family who'd have settled easily into any "extended family" like Homra. And he'd have been able to do so because he would subconsciously have known that he had a loving home to fall back on.

Whereas Fushimi (Kamo had gathered from whispered gossip overheard here and there that he'd been raised in a wealthy but shockingly unloving home) would probably have regarded his best friend as his entire world – the only living being he could open up to. He would never have let his guard down in a super-casual gang like Homra, nor would he ever have been able to accept that the boy he saw as everything to him had been absorbed by a bigger universe he could not adjust to.

Fushimi-san hadn't exactly embraced Sceptre 4 with open arms either, but Kamo could see how much better a fit the Blue clan was for his character compared with the rowdy, disorganised Red clan which seemed to run entirely on personal relationships and emotional connection. All so wrong for Fushimi-san.

Someone like Doumyouji would have done better in Homra, what with the way he'd spent half of last night nattering away about goodness knows what with Fujishima Kousuke and Eric Surt. They'd kept their voices down, of course, as they were in a hospital in the middle of the night, but Kamo had heard how bright Doumyouji's whispered tones were, and the genuine amusement in Fujishima's soft chuckles. His colleague had slightly less to say when Kushina Anna and Kusanagi Izumo had taken over Yata-watching duties, but he'd still managed to chirp a few lines to them before they'd gone into the room to talk to Yata.

Kusanagi came out again after a quarter of an hour in the company of Yata Naoki, who seemed concerned that his stepson's "employer" and "colleagues" were footing all the out-of-pocket expenses the medical insurance didn't cover. Not wanting to discuss such matters in front of the patient, Kusanagi had proposed taking the conversation elsewhere, and had cheerily called out: "Ah… Kamo-san, would you please help us keep an eye on the kids for ten minutes?"

So he'd gone into the room, and with Yata Misaki's permission, had sat with the Red king and Megumi-chan – who were getting on perfectly already. Kushina-san was carefully plaiting one side of Megumi-chan's soft, reddish-brown hair to keep it off her face, and Megumi-chan, in awe of the beautiful, gorgeously dressed doll-like older girl who had been introduced to her as her eldest brother's boss' foster daughter, was remarking on how many frills the hem of her dress had, and what a pretty red her shoes were. It made Kamo smile and wonder what his daughter's favourite colour would be when she was a little older, and whether she would make good friends whom she could rely on.

He and Yata Misaki got quite into the spirit of the hair plaiting too, making suggestions about how many more strands Kushina-san should weave in from the hairline. Kamo then helped the girls by holding the end of the finished plait while Kushina-san smoothed down a few strands, and he offered his own spare hair tie to secure the tail.

"I'm sorry it's just plain black, though," he apologised to Megumi-chan as Kushina-san twisted it snugly around the end.

"Mm, no, it holds nicely, ojisan," Megumi smiled.

"And we can always brighten it with this," said Kushina-san, untying the red ribbon from around her neck which she'd used as a necklace, slipping the pearl-and-crystal pendant off it and using the ribbon to wrap around the hair tie.

Everyone was just admiring the finished effect when Kamo heard, coming from the corridor, the voices of his colleagues who had come to relieve him and Doumyouji for the next shift. Gotou was asking Doumyouji: "…so the captain really came here personally last night to drag Fushimi-san back to the dorm?"

"Yup!" Doumyouji replied. "I did warn Fushimi-san!"

"Well, you'll never believe what happened after they got back to the dorm." It was Hidaka speaking now.

"What? What?" Doumyouji asked. "Did Fushimi-san fall sick from exhaustion?"

"Uh… he's _exhausted_ all right, but I don't know if he's sick," Hidaka chuckled.

"Oi, Hidaka – don't give the wrong impression," Gotou chided. "Lieutenant Awashima already explained…"

"Eh?" went Doumyouji, ignoring Gotou.

"The captain spent _all night_ in Fushimi-san's bedroom – after asking Fuse and me to tie Fushimi-san to his bed!" Hidaka carried on.

" _Ehhh?_ "

"Hidaka!" Gotou scolded. "You know that's _misleading_ … oi, Doumyouji – stop believing this idiot – it's not like that."

"But Captain _really did_ order me and Fuse to tie Fushimi-san down before spending the night in there with him. I wonder if he got spanked…"

As he had only one pair of hands and was thus unable to clap them over _both_ Megumi-chan's and Kushina-san's ears, and because just a glance at Yata Misaki's face told him that the young man was completely shocked and – yes, _horrified_ – by what he was hearing, Kamo had only one course of action to take. He rose, strode out of the room, and told off his younger colleague like the father he was: "Hey! Hidaka! Shut up _now_. There are _children_ in that room!"

To his credit, Hidaka immediately looked abashed. He said inappropriate things impulsively at times, but he was also quick to own up to his mistakes. And he hadn't realised that any kids had overheard him this early in the morning (it was 6am), or that Yata Misaki's door had been left open.

Unfortunately, Kusanagi had returned to the corridor in time to overhear him too, although Yata Naoki, thank goodness, appeared to have been delayed elsewhere – he was probably at one of the hospital counters trying to contribute to the payment arrangements for his stepson's care.

Kusanagi glared at Hidaka, who bowed deeply in apology. The Homra advisor – the Red clan's _regent_ , really – hurried back to the room with Kamo to ascertain that Megumi-chan and Kushina-san were fine. Well, they certainly seemed unaffected, as neither was likely to have fully understood all the connotations of Hidaka's words or even taken particular note of them. However, they quickly saw that the girls were not their main concern right now – rather, it was Yata Misaki, who looked absolutely stricken by what he'd heard.

 _So much for the Blue clan being more disciplined than the Red. Damn it._ "I'm so sorry for my colleague's thoughtlessness," Kamo apologised.

"Did your king _hurt_ Saruhiko?" Yata demanded furiously, looking alarmingly as if he was thinking of how best to struggle out of bed to punch every Blue he could get his fists on.

As Kushina and Kusanagi tried to soothe Yata, Kamo said earnestly: "Yata-san, our king would never hurt his clansmen. My colleague was making a misleading statement that he seemed to think was a joke, and once again, I apologise for his stupidity." Kamo truthfully had no idea what had gone on at the dorm last night, but he could speak from his personal conviction about Munakata's responsibility towards his clansmen, and echo what he had heard Gotou say about Hidaka's words giving the wrong impression.

"Yata-chan, calm down," Kusanagi was saying. "Fushimi is fine. Probably overworked, but safe. Please – don't – you'll tear your stitches…"

At Kusanagi's request, conveyed non-verbally through a jerk of his chin, Kamo shepherded Kushina-san and Megumi-chan from the room so that Kusanagi could settle Yata down. But as he closed the door behind them, he heard Yata ask in a distressed voice: "Kusanagi-san… did Saruhiko turn to _him_ because I didn't understand how he felt…?"

It occurred to Kamo at this moment that there might be a lot more to the story of the friendship between Yata Misaki and Fushimi Saruhiko than was down on paper or imparted through gossip. However, that wasn't for Kamo to know, and his only job for now was to make sure that these two children didn't hear any more inappropriate things – even though one of them was the Red king. So he leant down and asked: "Megumi-chan, shall we go with Kushina-san to show your father that pretty plait in your hair?"

That was his duty for now.

He would give Hidaka a piece of his mind later.

...

She had to take a deep breath before she knocked on the door, but as the lieutenant of Sceptre 4, responsible for all the men under her as well as for the reputation of her captain, it was her job to say the unpleasant things. So she rapped firmly.

"Ah – Awashima-kun, please come in. You have an update for me concerning the man who attacked Yata Misaki, I presume," Munakata said with a smile, setting his chessboard aside.

"Yes, Captain," she said, entering his office and standing before his desk, as was their usual routine. "Muruta Kazu suffered a serious concussion from being struck on the head by the Homra gang, but the medical team at the Nanakamado facility has reported that he has come round and is unlikely to have to live with any major long-term physical effects. He also appears to have recovered a slightly calmer frame of mind, although he will need psychological monitoring to ascertain if he will continue to recover from the mental effects of the game. He must also be kept confined for now to ensure that he does not pick up this game again. We should be able to question him by tomorrow at the earliest, but I do not see an urgent need for that, as his story about discovering, playing and progressing swiftly in the game is likely to be similar to that of Aoki Tadao, the first man we apprehended."

"What of Enomoto-kun's checks on Muruta's mobile phone?" Munakata asked.

"I was just coming to that. Enomoto-kun has gone through all the messages that have appeared on the latest levels of the game Muruta reached, and the most recent one, accompanying Level 31, was this. It read: 'Don't selfish privileged people understand that by destroying what they themselves no longer need or want, they are taking away the lives of others who have been given meaning by the very thing these selfish people do not want in existence?'."

She placed the printout of the screen shot on his desk.

"This suggests that someone – much like Hisui Nagare, perhaps – was depending on the slate for something important," Munakata mused, steepling his fingers. "And the person behind the games may have been left behind by that someone they cared about, who perhaps died or lost their sense of meaning in life, when the slate was destroyed."

"That is how it appears. We shall follow this line of investigation to see if we can obtain information from our sources about anyone known to have voiced violent discontent in the days immediately following the slate's end."

"Very good. Please proceed."

"There's another matter, Captain."

"What is it, Awashima-kun?"

"It's about Fushimi-kun. Captain, if I may speak frankly, you didn't help the situation at all by teasing him and everyone else who was there the way you did last night," Awashima told Munakata sternly.

In the past, she would never have spoken this bluntly to her king. But ever since he'd almost died from exceeding his Weismann deviation after defeating the Grey king, and she'd punched him when the whole crisis was over, she had been better able to speak her mind to his face.

What was he thinking now, giving everyone the impression that he and Fushimi-kun were in some sort of deviant sexual relationship? Not everyone understood his peculiar sense of humour, and the rumours with a dirty twist about Fushimi being "the captain's _favourite_ " would only get worse. It was a good thing she'd heard the whispers early this morning, ferreted out the facts, ascertained the truth from Munakata himself, and shut down the overt gossip by breakfast time.

"Surely there was a less… incendiary way of handling it?" she asked.

"Hmm? But Fushimi-kun was being terribly hard on himself about the brain-training games and so very many other matters, and on the point of working himself to exhaustion out of guilt. I calculated that teasing him a little was the best way to wear him down enough so that he would go to bed, and _stay_ there until fully rested," Munakata said. "He is excellent at biting back when confronted head-on, but he caves in very quickly when he is genuinely embarrassed."

"You _do_ know what people were already saying long before about you and Fushimi-kun," Awashima stated. "Do you not think that your way of dealing with him last night will only make them believe there's fire behind the smoke?"

She caught her breath as Munakata started to give her that look – that _face_ – which was always a precursor of some incredibly naïve question which would have one believe his lack of basic knowledge about the most fundamental facts of life. To prevent him from fully assuming that expression and following up with a comment she wouldn't even begin to know how to respond to, Awashima shot back with her own _look_ that she was _not_ going to buy an iota of it.

She triumphed when Munakata amended his facial expression to one slightly more knowing – but alas, no less playful.

"Awashima-kun," he replied. "Since our clansmen have long gossiped about the nature of my relationship with Fushimi-kun, they might as well continue. Fushimi-kun has never let rumours affect him negatively. In fact, like myself, he appears to derive amusement from using them to confuse people further. I imagine he will draw a great deal of entertainment from this in time to come."

"Is it good for team morale that Sceptre 4 personnel should believe their captain not only favours their third in command over others, but is even sleeping with him?"

"Ah, you do have a point. We should make things equal all round by establishing the rumour that I sleep with all my clansmen in turn."

"Captain!" Awashima gasped.

"And if I conduct myself with each of them exactly the way I conducted myself in Fushimi-kun's bedroom last night, they will quickly learn that all that is involved in sleeping with the captain is precisely that – sleeping," Munakata said in amusement. "Although it may be rather uncomfortable for me to spend so many nights in a succession of desk chairs."

Awashima sighed and asked him out of genuine concern: "Did _you_ get enough rest then, Captain, while making so much effort to ensure that Fushimi-kun did?"

"Oh, yes, thank you, Awashima-kun. As you know, I require at most four hours of sleep a night, and it was not too hard dropping off in Fushimi-kun's chair once I was sure he was no longer awake."

"Only to be spotted emerging from his bedroom at five in the morning," Awashima sighed again. "It truly does _not_ match Captain Munakata's reputation to be seen doing what appears to be the walk of shame."

"Hmm?" Munakata's eyes lit up with real curiosity as _that look_ came over his face. "What is this 'walk of shame' you speak of, Awashima-kun? Is it something I should know about?"

Awashima could only suppress a groan.

...

 _What did it all mean?_ Weismann wondered as he lay on the futon in the hours before dawn, staring up at the ceiling in the dark. Did all those great and terrible things come about from a slate with mysterious powers just so that everything could end? Had people been given all manner of abilities only for most to return to how they had been before, while others, like Strains, would not be replaced by new Strains once they were dead and gone? Was it all meant to be so… meaningless?

He himself was by nature an easy-going chap who had never done anything he regarded as being of genuine worth. But kings like Munakata Reisi – whom the Gold king, before he died, had described as a young man of already-great insightfulness whose wisdom had grown exponentially since being chosen by the slate – for a king like that to have the potential to achieve so much, then have all his powers taken away in a few short years… what did it all mean?

Then the matter of the slate's dispersed powers apparently responding to the Red king's desperation, but afterwards, refusing to be controlled again – what did it signify? That those scattered powers had intelligence? Empathy? A mindless semi-Pavlovian response to certain triggers?

He didn't know.

Not for the first time, he wished that he had died and Klaudia had lived. His sister would have made a brilliant immortal king. She wouldn't have shirked her responsibilities like he had. She would have mourned him for a time, then she'd have lifted her eyes to the world again. She would have taken charge of matters in partnership with the Gold king, so the Lieutenant wouldn't have had to run the show alone all these decades. She wouldn't have allowed the Kagutsu Crater incident to occur on her watch. She wouldn't have made the desperate call to let Suoh Mikoto destroy the evil-fox Colourless king – she would have found another way. Klaudia would have _cared_ about everyone touched by the slate, unlike her worthless little brother, who could only grasp at straws and get lucky once in a while when a straw turned out to be actually usable. With a king like her at the helm, maybe the slate would still be intact, and no one would have perished because of a Damocles Down.

Weismann sighed. Klaudia would have kicked his butt so hard for running away in the Himmelreich – and worse, _staying_ up there in the clouds for almost 70 years while the world below went to hell in a handbasket. She would have kicked him even harder for wallowing in regret about his previous irresponsibility. Hadn't he, not two days ago, told Munakata that it was important to look to the future and not be chained to the past?

However, something was nagging at Weismann, and it had the distinct flavour of the past about it. No, he wouldn't allow history to fetter him any more – he had Neko and Kuroh and the boy whose body he'd occupied, Hieda Tooru, to live for now. But he had a suspicion he would need to understand something about the past better so that moving forward wouldn't be an endless uphill slog.

Something was trying to speak to him… the scattered power of the slate that he had sensed for weeks now held the answers to his silent questions, and it was willing to tell him a story… which he hadn't the ears to hear.

Was he troubled by guilt about his foolishly working with the political and military powers of his native country back in the years of the Second World War, thinking that all he was doing was some fascinating research that would benefit mankind in general and his homeland in particular? He and Klaudia had both been naïve. They'd only wanted to learn more and uncover the secrets of the mysterious Dresden Slate, and he had stupidly, _stupidly_ thought like the impulsive young man he'd been then how good it would be if this could help Germany win the war, hand in hand with its allies, Japan and Italy. Only with hindsight did he understand that he and Klaudia should have asked a lot more questions about what their government was really doing, and the Lieutenant might have done well to ask a few questions about his own too. They had shut their eyes to the horrors perpetuated by the people in charge of their two lands during that era, and once he learnt what those horrors were, he wished he had never played a role in doing any manner of research for the German government of that time.

One moment, he'd been a silly scientist boyishly babbling about the glories of war, and the next, he'd woken up to the awful personal truth of what armed conflict truly meant when Dresden was bombed, and Klaudia had died saving him. It still hurt him to wonder if her sacrifice had been in vain – perhaps the slate had already chosen him as the immortal Silver king at that moment, and he wouldn't have perished even if she hadn't tried to help him. Neither would he have ended up a living corpse like Hisui Nagare, simply because the Silver king's powers were different from the Green king's.

If there was one thing he could console himself with, it was that he and Klaudia had never done anything that had directly helped the Nazis. Their research on the slate had never been applied to German forces or used against the Nazis' enemies, thank God.

Neither had the Lieutenant been willing to apply the slate's powers in aid of wartime Japan. Kokujouji Daikaku had done something Weismann didn't think he would have had the wisdom to do if he'd been in his old friend's place. The Lieutenant hadn't grasped at the powers of the slate in a last-ditch bid to turn the lost war around for Japan and the other Axis powers. Instead, as the Axis forces caved and confusion reigned, he'd been able to slip under the radar and quietly take the slate to Japan – not to reinforce its armies, but to rebuild the economy and confidence of his devastated nation.

He'd done the right thing, Weismann believed. No one in Europe had any means of controlling the slate, anyway – that was why they'd brought in Kokujouji at all. Legend said the slate had been sealed at some time in the ancient past by powerful exorcists from the Orient, and because the Kokujouji family was the greatest onmyouji clan at that time, its chosen head had been sent to Dresden even though he was but a lowly lieutenant in the Japanese armed forces.

If not for that, Weismann knew, he would most probably have had to meet a much higher-ranking officer like a general or colonel for such a top-secret project. And a high-profile career officer wouldn't have been able to secretly take command of the slate, then discreetly spend the remainder of his life preventing the mysterious object from going out of control, while harnessing its power to increase his clan's talents for his country's good.

The slate had crowned its Gold king well, and done a good job selecting Miwa Ichigen, Munakata, and the peaceable Kushina Anna. But Kagutsu Genji, Suoh Mikoto, the fox being, Iwafune Tenkei and Hisui Nagare had been disasters, while Habari Jin had tragically failed to prevent Kagutsu from roaring out of control, and in the process exceeded his own power limits. Weismann himself had been useless. The slate's poor choices had outnumbered its good ones. And even the decent kings had had their notable failings which had resulted in a lot of damage.

It was almost as if… no, surely not? Surely it couldn't be that the slate was flawed from the start and therefore made more poor choices than wise decisions? Or that it was malicious in its intelligence and thus leaned towards destructive individuals as kings? Or was it an intelligence that saw the world as a massive game of chess in which it chose pieces that made no sense to anyone but itself? But then, if the combination of these destructive as well as stellar pieces had ultimately led to the playing of a game that had ended the slate itself, then surely it was nothing more than one huge misplayed game on the slate's part?

Unless… unless that _was_ the end result it had been manipulating them towards all along.

Its own destruction.

As he thought that, the words from the Satyricon of Petronius came into his mind:

" _Sybil, what do you want?"  
_ _She replied, "I want to die."_

The specks of power let loose had a past to them. He needed to understand that history in order for them all to move forward. So, no, it wasn't the matter of the recent past troubling him like the Nazi era that he needed to work through. It was far older than that. Far older – from a time when there were no such things as nations, or even the Orient and the West. Somewhere in there was a story. And the powers, freed from the physical slate, were whispering it to him. But he hadn't the ears to hear.

However, he was pretty sure that Kushina Anna did.

* * *

 **Note:** Anonymous Fanatic has done some beautiful art for this story, which is up on her DeviantArt page. Since we're not allowed to use URLs here, I can only spell it out: For the one that shows a scene from this chapter, go to anonfanatic dot deviantart dot com slash art slash Becoming-Poster-Chapter-6-620057117. The drawings for the previous five chapters can be seen in her gallery once you're on her DA page.

Alternatively, I also have this story up on AO3, and I've linked directly to the drawings at the end of each chapter there.


	7. In Your Eyes

**In Your Eyes**

Yata's heart pounded with anticipation as he heard the chorus of voices outside his room.

"Fushimi-san!"

"Fushimi-san!"

"Ah – Fushimi."

"Saruhiko."

"Saru!"

"Saruhiko-kun!"

His heart sped up even more when that familiar, bored voice responded: "What's going on, exactly?"

He sounded _fine_ , thank goodness. Yata had deliberately waited until this hour to make his demands so he could be sure Saruhiko would have gotten enough sleep.

"Fushimi-san, have you had enough rest?" That was Hidaka Akira, sounding absurdly guilty – as well he should.

"I doubt it would have been possible not to when _that irritating man_ deliberately disabled my alarm and I _over_ slept." He sounded ready to strangle someone – which Yata figured was as good an indication as any that he was well rested and untraumatised. "So, _what_ is going on? Why did Lieutenant Awashima say I should come here right now?"

"Ah… Yata Misaki-san refused to allow us to contact you directly until we had discreetly ascertained through Lieutenant Awashima that you were already awake." It was the other guy this time – that Gotou Ren chap.

"Wh…?"

"Yata-chan wanted to be very sure you'd rested enough," Kusanagi-san added in an amused tone.

"Huh?"

"But at the same time, Misaki was also very anxious to see you." That was his dad speaking now.

"Why…?"

"Misaki-nii-chan wouldn't eat his breakfast or lunch or even medicine!" Megumi chimed in.

"He – _what?_ "

"Saruhiko, Misaki was worried about you," came Anna's soft voice.

"Saruhiko-kun, Misaki seemed to think you'd been hurt, for some reason," his dad explained. "He refused to eat all morning, and he's now refused lunch too, but he only just told us 40 minutes ago that he would eat only when he could see with his own eyes that you were all right. The nurses won't insist on a drip-feed so soon, but if he keeps this up…"

" _Why_ would Misaki think that I…?"

"Erm… Fushimi-san… that was my fault."

"What did you do?"

"Fushimi, the explanations can come later," Kusanagi said cheerily. "For now, please go in and see Yata-chan."

"Yes, please," his dad requested. "We'll leave you two to talk alone."

"We'll leave him in your care, Saruhiko," said Anna.

"Yeah, he's _all yours_!" Kusanagi declared in a deliberately significant way that had Yata feeling that telltale heat around his cheeks. _Aaargh, Kusanagi-san!_ Just because he'd let slip in his panic this morning that Saruhiko might have liked him before…

"Wait – what-?" Saruhiko began, only to be told by the chorus of voices – Kusanagi-san's the clearest – that they were going to grab a bite in the hospital cafeteria and would bring food back for Hidaka, Gotou and him.

Yata held his breath as the others' footsteps faded, Saruhiko's purposeful footfalls came closer, and then… there he was in the doorway, in a clean, pressed uniform, looking just… _perfectly Saruhiko_. He looked rested. He looked a hell of a lot better than he had yesterday. He looked _good_.

"Misaki?" Saruhiko was speaking his name like a question, eyeing him curiously.

"You're fine, then," Yata sighed in relief.

"What made you think I wasn't?"

"He – your king – he didn't hurt you, did he?" Yata asked, blushing, still not entirely convinced that nothing bad had happened last night.

To his alarm, Saruhiko slid his gaze to one side, and his face betrayed a blooming of pink over the cheekbones. That was damning, because his friend rarely if ever blushed, unlike Yata. _Something_ had occurred… But he was propping up his glasses now and re-establishing direct eye contact, then in a slightly raised mutter designed to reach beyond the room, he asked: "Let me guess – that _loudmouth_ in the corridor talked _rubbish_ this morning, didn't he? I'd like him to guess _how much more paperwork_ he'll be doing this week."

He entered the room without waiting to hear if Hidaka so much as squeaked in dismay, and shut the door behind him.

"I can't believe you've behaved so childishly," Saruhiko remarked, bemused.

"I – I had to be sure," Yata mumbled. "You don't say so many things to me, and after what happened in the apartment, and with you beating yourself up over the app, and with your king being such a weird guy, when I overheard that Hidaka saying things, stuff just added up in my head, and I thought… I just worried that…"

Fushimi came up to his bedside and put a hand on his forehead.

"Hey – what – "

"Your temperature appears to be normal."

"What d'you… of course it's normal, _Dr_ Fushimi, or is that _Nurse_ Fushimi?" Yata scowled. "I was worried about you!"

"What exactly did you hear your fellow idiot saying out there?"

"Something about… uhm… t-tying…" Yata stammered, feeling that he had to be getting redder in the face, because it was humiliating having to _verbalise_ things like this, dammit. "… erm… about you getting tied to, uhh, your bed and your king doing… _things_ … to you all night, and…"

"And it 'added up' to something in your head?" Fushimi remarked, speaking steadily although Yata noted that the pink hue over those fine cheekbones was deepening.

"Uh, yeah…"

"Misaki shouldn't do mental maths."

"Huh?"

 _Oh._

"I'd never imagine that a _virginal_ guy like you would ever associate being tied to a bed with anything _kinky_ , like 'having things done to one all night'."

"Sh – shut up, Saru!" Yata yelped. But in the midst of his mortification, it didn't escape his notice that Saruhiko looked self-conscious too. Something had _definitely_ happened in the Sceptre 4 dorm last night, and even if it wasn't anything bad like Yata had jumped to conclusions about – what with the meds and his sore limbs and his disrupted sleep routine making him twitchier than usual – it clearly wasn't _nothing_ either. Or was Saruhiko being self-conscious only because it was Yata he was talking to about such things? He'd apparently _liked_ him at some point, only Yata hadn't known…

"So will you eat and take your medication now?" Saruhiko grumbled, eyeing the untouched tray of food, still covered, and the pills in a disposable plastic holder, sitting on the overbed table which had been pushed aside.

Yata nodded.

"I'll send for the nurse."

"No."

"Misaki – "

"You feed me."

"Haah?"

" _You_ feed me, or I won't eat. Or swallow my pills."

"What do you think you – "

"Feed me," Yata said insistently. Actually, this hadn't been part of his plan; he was instinctively making things up as he went along. All he'd wanted initially was to see that Saruhiko wasn't harmed in any way, and be as petulant about it as possible so his friend would have to appear before him in person once he'd slept enough and was out of his dorm room. But now, this childish demand he was making – and honestly, he didn't know why he was making it – seemed like the right thing to do.

They stood off in silence for about a minute. Yata kept his eyes bright and stubborn and hoped his expression was obstinate enough to make up for the fact that he couldn't underline it by crossing his arms. Saruhiko glared back at him from where he stood, one hand on his hip an outward emphasis of his irritation.

Yata didn't allow his expression to waver, but as the minute ticked by, he started feeling guilty. Saruhiko was a busy guy. He was overworked. There was a crazy, programme-stealing, app-releasing Strain on the loose deliberately making people insane. It was selfish of Yata to…

"Fine."

 _Huh?_

He stared as Saruhiko eased the overbed trolley closer to Yata and uncovered the food tray. Beef curry; radish soup; a salad of edamame, cucumber strips, baby spinach and chilled soba with a grated-ginger dressing; and for fruit, an apple.

"The curry and soup are cold by now," Saruhiko observed. "I'll get the staff to heat them up."

"No, I'll eat the dishes as they are," Yata insisted, feeling that if they didn't do this immediately, the moment would pass and it would never come back, and he wouldn't be able to keep following these instincts telling him to just go with whatever nutty ideas popped into his head. As if to emphasise the pressing need for him to eat _now_ , his miserably empty stomach rumbled loudly.

"Some water first, please," he mumbled. "I'm dying of thirst."

The hospital had provided one of those plastic tumblers with a straw built into the lid after Yata's first night, so he didn't have to be propped up to take awkward sips straight from the rim of a cup any more. Yata coloured a little as he remembered how Saruhiko had wrapped a firm, steady arm – all muscle and sinew, so different from the softness of his mother and the nurses – around his back last night, and so carefully tipped the cup against his mouth. It was a very un-Saruhiko moment he wouldn't forget soon. With the straw, they didn't have to do that today, and that was a pity, because he wanted to give this a shot… this notion that was forming in his brain but hadn't taken shape yet, and which he was moulding on the fly. _Oh, but the soup would do for that later…_

"I'll start with the curry," Yata decided.

Saruhiko pulled his chair up against the bed on Yata's right, so the suspended sling for his left arm wouldn't be in their way. He picked up the spoon, scooped up a bit of rice with curry and meat, and raised it to Yata's mouth.

It was an absurd scene, because Saruhiko was the _least_ nurturing person Yata knew. (In his book, Fushimi Niki won hands down, but he was dead; and Fushimi Kisa _would_ have won if Yata had ever met her, which he hadn't, so he couldn't claim to know her.) When his mum and the nurses had fed him yesterday, and when his dad had tried to feed him today, their actions had been the expected kind from parents and people used to taking care of others – you know, like a hand cupped under the spoon so no food would spill on him, saying silly little things one would say to kids like "Open wide!" or "Ahhh…", smiling in encouragement so he'd eat more, and gently wiping the corners of his mouth between bites. (It was a good thing the female nurses who'd tended to him so far were the matronly sort – if they'd been pretty young women, he'd have combusted.)

Saruhiko, however, was the kind of guy who didn't even know how to take care of himself, never mind another person. Yata knew very well that no one in the Fushimi family had ever shown him how to look after anyone, as they'd never looked after him. So he had no idea how to do this. In fact, since most of Saruhiko's meals these days barely involved cutlery, he _really_ didn't know how to do this at all – he simply thrust the spoon towards him, letting a grain of rice land on the blanket. Yata opened his mouth anyway, received the food and started chewing, and another spoonful was held out at once, well before he was ready for it. Fushimi's face was the picture of concentration, blue eyes fixed on the spoon, totally focused on the mechanics of the task.

Yata swallowed his first mouthful, feeling his level of irritation rising already as he jerked his chin away from the implement determinedly making its way towards his mouth, and said: "Oi, Saruhiko!"

His friend's eyes flicked up at him in surprise. "What?" he asked.

"There's a rhythm to these things," Yata said irritably. "And you're supposed to focus on the person you're feeding, not just the spoon. When you focus on the person, you can tell if they're ready for the next mouthful before you shove the spoon at them again."

"I see," Saruhiko said stiffly.

"I'm ready now," Yata muttered.

"Good. So is the next spoonful," Saruhiko stated curtly.

Yata opened his mouth, got the food with some working of his lips and tongue (the monkey didn't angle the spoon for him _at all_ ), and chewed slowly, eyeing Saruhiko, noting how the black pupils in those blue irises were now fixed firmly on him from beneath his finely formed eyebrows, one of which was twitching in annoyance. The guy was observing him intently as if he were a lab animal in a science project (Step 1: Watch animal chew. Step 2: Wait for animal to swallow. Step 3: Deliver next piece of food to animal. Repeat.)

It irked Yata enough to raise the challenge a notch, although he was still without a conscious plan – he just knew he _had_ to do this. So when he swallowed, and Saruhiko lifted the next spoonful towards him, he jerked his chin away again.

"What now, Misaki?" Saruhiko growled.

"How can I sit here eating when you look so malnourished?" Yata snapped. "I'll bet you've had nothing but energy bars and coffee today. All the proper sleep you've finally managed to get will only be undermined by your crappy diet. Now eat a bean."

"What?"

"Eat an edamame bean. Now." Yata nodded at the salad.

"I'm not eating that."

"Then I'm not eating or drinking or taking my medication."

"Fine," Saruhiko snapped back, tossing the spoon onto the plate and pushing his chair away from the bed. "Starve."

He stood and turned to go, but was stopped by Yata's next words: "If I can put up with being fed like an infant by other people because some madman decided he'd get a kick out of nailing my arms to a plywood board, you can grow up and eat some vegetables, Saruhiko."

Oh, that got to him. Yata knew it was a low blow, yanking at those guilt strings, but now that he had the perfect opportunity, he was going to make Saruhiko eat something healthier if it killed him.

It worked, too. His friend turned back towards the bed, glared at him, and growled: "I can eat a fucking bean. Here. I'm eating one."

He picked up one of the edamame beans from the salad with his fingers and swallowed it without biting into it.

"Another," Yata prompted.

Saruhiko popped his second like a pill.

"Feed me my next mouthful. I want the soup now."

A silent moment of consideration later, Saruhiko lifted the soup bowl to Yata's lips. The head of the bed was well raised, so he didn't really need to be supported as he drank, but Saruhiko seemed more careful this time, and put his left arm round Yata's back, perching on the edge of the mattress as his right hand tilted the bowl.

"Daikon?" Saruhiko muttered after Yata had slurped enough.

Yata nodded, so Saruhiko picked up the chopsticks, snared a slice of daikon from the soup bowl, and fed it to him, taking care this time to hold the bowl under it so soup wouldn't drip off the piece of radish onto his lap.

"You eat the other slice."

Saruhiko glowered, but speared the other piece of daikon with the chopsticks and swallowed it.

"Please can I have more curry rice next?" Yata asked, nicely now.

Saruhiko remained perched on his mattress as he spooned another mouthful of sliced beef, curry and rice past Yata's lips.

"Now, eat a mouthful of cucumber," he said, half-unconsciously adopting the tone his mother did when she was firmly insisting that her children should do as they were told.

Saruhiko grimaced, but gathered up a bunch of the julienned cucumber strips with the chopsticks and ate them. He even chewed this time.

"They're fucking tasteless," he complained.

"You're supposed to stir the ginger dressing into the salad, idiot monkey."

"That sounds disgusting."

"Move back in with me and I'll make you vegetables that don't taste disgusting."

"That's not an incentive, Misaki."

He fed him more of the curry rice without being prompted, and Yata felt his heart grow warm. Saruhiko _cared_. Well, of course he knew he cared – he'd always known, even when his certainty had taken a knock after Saru had left Homra. But he hadn't been sure that Saruhiko would ever know how to show he cared… and this was where Yata was continuing to make things up as he went along, not knowing his aim, because he'd never been good at thinking up detailed plans or thinking them through. He was just following his gut at this moment which was nudging him _this_ way, or _that_ way, because… because deep inside, he must be trying to get at something. But what was it? It was… it was…

"Earlier," Saruhiko murmured. "When you were still ranting and raving after I came in and closed the door, you mentioned what happened at the apartment. It's the second time in two days you've alluded to it."

That's what it was.

"Oh, ye – yeah," Yata began, awkwardly. "I never knew before… how you felt, I mean."

"Yes, I figured."

"I didn't even get what you meant just before you left that night, until… the next day," Yata mumbled.

"I figured that too."

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Why don't people say such things?" Saruhiko murmured rhetorically, giving him another spoonful of food. "Because they have good reason to believe the other person doesn't feel the same way."

"Because you always thought I liked girls," Yata blurted out, after swallowing quickly.

"Don't you?"

"Yes, but…"

"Such things rarely come with a 'but'."

" _But_ I also felt about Mikoto-san how I never thought I'd be able to feel about another guy…"

Saruhiko put the spoon down and looked… _shit_ , Yata realised he looked utterly distraught, like he'd turned to stone.

"… in a way I never thought I'd be able to feel about another guy besides _you_ ," Yata ploughed on before the look on Saruhiko's face could tear his heart out.

"Misaki…"

"I know we were only kids back then when I was practically crushing on you, but I'd never felt about anyone else the way I felt about you – you were the first guy I ever looked at in anything close to _that_ way before Mikoto-san –"

" _Don't_ lump me in with _Mikoto-san_!" Saruhiko snarled as he leapt to his feet, slamming the plate of curry onto the overbed table, looking and sounding so furious that Yata flinched.

He was determined to say it, though, stating boldly in the face of that sudden, lightning-like rage: "You were the first guy I ever looked at that way. Mikoto-san was the second."

" _No,_ Misaki," Saruhiko said, no longer snarling but shaking with a deep emotion that seemed to well up from his very core. "You _never_ looked at me the way you looked at Mikoto-san. _That's_ what made it clear to me. It was never a case of possibly being able to get you back from him – I never had you at all, not like he did from the very start."

"That's not true!" Yata could feel himself losing his temper now, though he didn't know why, when…

"Do you think I don't know what you've been trying to do today? Even if you weren't conscious of it yourself?" Saruhiko asked, his voice growing calm, almost cold. "You felt guilty that because you didn't understand me, I might have turned to someone else you thought of as a 'weird guy', and out of some misplaced urge to 'save' me from him, you were trying to find out if you could possibly see me in _that_ way by getting me to feed you, take care of you, play at behaving this intimately with you so you could _try_ – so you could _struggle_ to look at me in that light."

"I'm working really hard at this!" Yata yelled, feeling the tears prickling at his eyes, wishing his arms weren't in splints so he could grab Saruhiko, punch him, punch anyone.

Saruhiko stared at him, and Yata glared back through his blurring vision, both of them staying silent until Saruhiko spoke quietly: "It's not supposed to be such a struggle, Misaki."

 _But…_

"Looking at someone you want in that way – it should come as easy as breathing," Saruhiko finished, quietly, ironically leaving Yata feeling breathless with the truth of it.

Their yelling had drawn the attention of a nurse, who opened the door to check on Yata, with Hidaka and Gotou watching worriedly from behind her.

"Is everything all right, Yata-kun?" the nurse asked, concerned. She was one of the matronly ones who had helped feed him some food and pills last night, and who had seen Saruhiko spend most of the night here.

Yata didn't know that he would be able to keep his voice steady if he had to answer her, so he was grateful when Saruhiko said gruffly: "He's fine. We do this all the time, he and I."

"Yeah," Yata whispered, looking off to the side. It was all he could manage for now.

"But wanting to kill each other half the time has never stopped us from being best friends, crazy as that might sound," Saruhiko added, less gruffly this time, looking straight at Yata, his earlier rage and near-frenzy completely stilled.

Yata raised his head and lifted his eyes to Saruhiko's face now that all the questions he didn't even know he'd been trying to ask had been answered. Summoning the ghost of a smile that rose above the hurt and the relief, the regret and the clarity all tussling inside him for the upper hand, he asked the other man in a slightly raw voice: "We're good, then?"

"Always, Misaki. We'll always be friends."

He didn't know if that last word was a positive one coming out of Saruhiko's mouth, or if it was a signal of the end of every other possibility between them that Yata hadn't seriously considered before the revelation that had struck him the night before last.

But Saruhiko's phone beeped with an incoming message, and after glancing at it and going still for a second, his friend strode out of the room with only half a backward glance, saying to the nurse: "Please make sure he finishes the rest of his lunch and takes his medicine."

Then he was gone.

...

"The app may have been blocked for now, preventing new users from gaining access to it. But those who downloaded it to their devices before then will still be able to use it. So we shouldn't be surprised that this has occurred," Awashima said, addressing the tall figure before her in the traditional robes and unnervingly expressionless rabbit mask of the Gold clan.

Fushimi, who had just arrived at Mihashira Tower after being summoned from the hospital by Awashima, had calmed down completely after his altercation with Misaki, thanks to the stiff, formal, silent-as-a-graveyard ambience of this place – at least this part of it that wasn't still undergoing reconstruction after the Green clan's and Grey king's slate-stealing Christmas Eve assault. Focusing on the matter at hand, he thought his lieutenant was holding up well before the senior clansman he was sure they'd met with before – though it was always hard to tell who was whom when they wore those identical outfits and masks with long ears like demon horns.

It seemed they were upholding the practice the late Gold king had instituted of keeping their identities secret. Fushimi supposed it made sense because key members of the Gold clan were apparently people at the helms of various government boards, private corporations, major local companies and Japan-based multinational companies. Rumour had it that several were high-ranking politicians and famous entrepreneurs, and a few were even said to be trusted advisors to the Imperial family. He guessed that Kokujouji Daikaku had deemed it best that when his people were meeting outsiders as representatives of the Gold clan, no names or faces be attached to them so that neither party would be influenced by his clansmen's roles in the world outside.

"Thanks to the precautionary measures taken by Sceptre 4, however, we appear to have limited the damage done," said the person behind the mask – Fushimi was quite sure it was the same elderly clansman now. He sounded like the one they had met before, when they were in negotiations with the Nanakamado research facility to supplement Sceptre 4's waning superpowers with artificially generated ones.

On his way here from Shinjuku in a cab, he had been briefed by Awashima about an attack that had just taken place an hour ago on the headquarters of Daiichi Universal Corporation, an electronic-parts manufacturing giant said to be an important financial pillar of the Gold clan. It had been among the companies named in that message on the app that had asked players to target Sceptre 4 and Homra. A man and a woman had been arrested within a few minutes of the attack, in which they had used their powers to rip glass panes off the building's façade so they would rain deadly sheets and shards down on passers-by and employees below.

However, no one had been killed, and damage to the building had been kept to a minimum, because Sceptre 4 and the Gold clan had had the foresight to station a team from the regular swordsmen division there – a team armed with and trained to use the first batch of test shields and enhanced sabres. Although they no longer had Blue aura which might have harmlessly deflected the falling glass, two of the swordsmen had successfully used their enhanced sabres to neutralise the attackers' psychokinetic powers, stopping them from ripping any more panes off, and the other three had swiftly herded the exposed civilians behind them and activated the artificial "aura" on their shields created by the Gold clan, preventing the glass from inflicting serious injuries on anyone once it smashed to the ground and sent shards flying in every direction.

It had not been an ideal form of protection, and there was much left to be desired from it in comparison with the clan powers they'd once had, but it would do for now until the clans had more time to improve the equipment. What was important for today was that no one had died or been badly harmed, and the two attackers had been immediately taken into custody by Sceptre 4.

"It was the Nanakamado researchers who anticipated, after the departure of His Excellency, that non-clansmen and non-Strains with more-than-human powers could surface soon," Awashima said politely, with a slight formal bow. "They had seen how various parties had become intrigued by how to reproduce the abilities displayed by ordinary people who had drawn aura from the Green clan. And the enhancements to our sabres, as well as the new shields being tested, seem to be doing what they are meant to."

"Some of that must be credited to your clan," said the voice behind the rabbit mask, equally politely and formally, and Fushimi couldn't suppress an involuntary shiver when those dark irises shifted to him through those disturbing eye holes. "I believe it was a suggestion made by your third in command that since we have long had shackles for nullifying Strain powers which work on the basis of neutralising slate-originated aura and brainwave patterns, we could likewise craft materials that would work against psychokinetic and other projections originating from the dimensions of the brain that are beyond its physical structures and common-chemical make-up."

Fushimi looked down and lowered his head in an approximation of a token bow. He figured it was expected of him, but it would be hypocritical to go into full formal mode when he never did that for anyone, not even his own king, and not even on those occasions when he'd stood in the presence of the prime minister. Propriety was hardly the main thing on his mind, anyway, because he felt extraordinarily stupid right now, realising with a jolt that he'd made that suggestion to Munakata and the Gold clan several months ago without even giving his teenage brain-training adaptations much of a thought.

Of course his old research had been the basis for his even bringing up such a thing, but he'd hardly consciously considered that at the time. He had only spoken of the possibility of countering psychokinetic brain waves as a passing mention he hadn't intended to have taken seriously. And here they were now, months later, with those stupid programmes he'd barely given a thought to rearing up from where they'd been buried and dealing him a sledgehammer blow through Misaki's horrible injuries. For the hundredth time, he shuddered and thought: _Good god, if Anna hadn't been able to summon those powers…_

He had to suppress a bitter laugh. There he'd been not half an hour ago, viciously berating Misaki like a borderline loon for blindly groping his way through to an emotional epiphany at his expense, just because he'd triggered his smothered rage by mentioning him in the same breath as Suoh Mikoto. And here he was now realising that he himself had unthinkingly referred to his old research when planning for the future with the Rabbits of the Timeless Palace, and was only consciously grasping that now. For years, he'd buried his old schemes just like he'd buried his resentment of Suoh, and it was all erupting in his own face and in Misaki's…

"… yet, Fushimi-san insisted at the time that he was not a brain expert?" the man in the rabbit mask was remarking now.

 _Oh no. What had he missed the man saying while thinking of Misaki? Shit. The fellow had even referred to him by name._

Awashima was glaring at him, so he murmured, vaguely, hoping it would suffice as a response: "It is true. I'm not an expert on the brain at all; I know very little about its workings – I didn't even go to high school. My old research into psychokinesis was based purely on studying the findings of researchers who truly were brain experts, analysing what they had done thus far, as well as what they themselves declared was missing and which they were unable to bridge. I merely used their exercises and their formulae to bridge the gap using my own sense of how to do so. I believe I was able to do what they could not precisely because I knew little about their field of work. I didn't have all that knowledge to hold me back."

The Rabbit seemed to assess him, weighing him up and taking him apart, before the masked head nodded in apparent acceptance of his little speech, which he couldn't even be sure had answered the question appropriately.

Awashima seemed satisfied, however, so he guessed he couldn't have been too far off the mark.

"Well, it is thanks to all the positive contributions made by many parties thus far that our clan's interests sustained barely any damage in today's incident," the Rabbit said. "So I can give the Blue king an answer now that we are ready to proceed with further research in this area in order to arm Sceptre 4, the Silver clan, and perhaps – if our alliance continues – select members of the Red clan with defensive weapons and restraining equipment that can be most effectively wielded by those who have extensively employed clan powers before. The Blue king's most recent update for us on investigations into the psychokinetic cases explains that there is something different about the brains of those of us who once received power from the slate, and we are now approaching a position where we may be able to use that to our advantage."

"Yes, Captain Munakata will be arriving very soon to confirm that this is the direction that the Blue clan will take in unison with the Gold, Silver and Red clans," Awashima said. "Once again, please allow me to convey the captain's sincere apologies for being delayed by the unexpected request from the prime minister's office for an urgent meeting."

"These are uneasy times, Lieutenant," said the Rabbit. "It is unsurprising that the country's political leaders would want reassurance that the organised clans, whose nature they largely concealed from the public for so many decades, can continue to protect the ordinary people of this nation against powers beyond those of normal human abilities. However, I wonder if we will have to always rely on such artificial developments when I understand that the Red king has been able to summon the powers that used to hail from the slate. Perhaps they will return to us in time?"

"It would not be my preference to depend on such an outcome," came Munakata's voice from just beyond the room, as another masked individual slid the screen door open for him.

The Blue king entered and inclined his head in greeting to the Gold clansman who stood with Awashima and Fushimi; the clansman returned the greeting with a bow.

"I have heard from the Silver king, who says he has reason to believe that we should not be relying on the powers we used to have, although they may yet behave in unpredictable ways as they did for the Red king," Munakata explained. "Weismann-san needs to learn more from the Red king, but for now, he feels that the powers may only be a wild card in desperate situations. I believe that we shall have to keep looking forward in order to protect ourselves and the people around us."

Their host led the way to a set of low, traditional tables across the room, where they were to continue their discussions over tea that was now being brought out. To Fushimi's dismay, they were obliged to fold themselves into seiza, which their Gold host, Munakata and Awashima clearly had no problem with. Fushimi glared at his superiors, noting that Munakata was exchanging a glance with Awashima in their usual calm, fond manner, which always spoke of their professional confidence and personal affinity. Then Munakata turned to look at Fushimi who, caught off-guard by that violet gaze, found his breath hitching at the sight of how his king's eyes lit up when they locked with his, and how that pleased smile on those perfect lips seemed almost like a secret between them.

Had Fushimi not noticed that look before? Or was it something new? As he shifted his weight back on his heels, uncomfortably, he saw that it was a look with nothing forced in it, and though it held vast, hidden worlds that he thought he would never be able to peer into, he could tell, somehow, that it was a perfectly natural look, one as open to him as it could possibly be – a look that came to Munakata… as easy as breathing.

* * *

 **Note:** For Anonymous Fanatic's drawing for this chapter, go to anonfanatic dot deviantart dot com slash art slash Becoming-Art-Chapter-7-621473660. The drawings for the previous six chapters can be seen in her gallery once you're on her DA page. Alternatively, I have this story up on AO3, and I've linked directly to the drawings at the end of each chapter there.


	8. Falling

**Falling**

It was the middle of spring, and the sakura petals were starting to fall. Zenjou Gouki looked out of the window in the reference room of the General Affairs division, where he had spent the afternoon awkwardly filing incident reports with his single arm. He paused in his work to take in the view of the training grounds – it was against this very backdrop two years ago that he had first laid eyes on Kusuhara Takeru. The swordsman, looking a fair bit younger than his 20 years, had run by his window while doing laps as a punishment ordered by Awashima for messing up in drill training, caught a glimpse of Zenjou in the shadows amongst the maze of old shelves, and thought he'd seen a demon.

They'd met again in the dojo late at night, shared soba in the reference room, trained together informally, and over the next few weeks, the kid's puppy-like openness, sincerity and earnest effort in all that he did had got under Zenjou's skin. At the end of spring, Munakata had transferred Kusuhara out of the combat troops to General Affairs, assigning him to the reference room. For a month, Zenjou had schooled him in the loosely kendo- and fencing-based moves that formed the foundation of the swordcraft techniques Blue clansmen used to wield their aura in battle. Against all odds – or perhaps because of the odds against him, which Zenjou had undoubtedly influenced by hurting the kid's foot – Kusuhara had managed to score a hit against Lieutenant Awashima with his training weapon. That duel had decided his career. If he'd failed to score that hit, he would have had to leave Sceptre 4 altogether; instead, he'd been transferred to the special operations squad that reported directly to Munakata.

A week later, the boy was dead.

The sickening thing was that Munakata had to have known that Kusuhara was _meant_ to die. At the peak of his powers, the Blue king had a mind that saw how everything should fit together. So he had to have known that in the world he was moulding, Kusuhara Takeru was the perfect missing piece – the one whose loss would make the picture right.

Zenjou had raged, and attacked Munakata, but controlled his fury enough to back him up as they launched a counter-assault on Jungle – the organisation that had killed Kusuhara in its attempt to assassinate Munakata. Then the demon in Zenjou had broken loose as Kusuhara's loss and Munakata's coolness ripped through him all over again – and he didn't know how, but somehow, that demonic rage had lashed out instinctively to save Munakata from the sniper's bullet fired by the next assassin of the Green clan.

He hated knowing that his sleeping strength had been roused only because Kusuhara had died. The boy, whom Munakata had openly declared to be a person who could charm Zenjou, had stirred Zenjou to life in the short time they'd spent together, then stirred the demon in him to wakefulness with his demise.

He'd barely taken it in – all the pretty, unfeeling words Munakata spouted – about how Kusuhara's death had protected Sceptre 4 and made it possible to mould it into an even stronger organisation.

At the time, such reasoning had not seemed out of place, with the clans mired in warfare against one another and rogue Strains. But now, barely two years later, what was the purpose of it all? The boy was dead, the slate was destroyed, and in a matter of years, there would be no purpose in Sceptre 4 being a strong organisation. As the Strain population gradually died out from old age or other causes, and the clans faded, what would Sceptre 4 mean any more? What had been the point of Kusuhara's death?

Had his whole purpose in life been to die saving Munakata? And to nudge the monstrous strength Zenjou had shackled within himself – after being forced to kill Habari Jin – to break loose and save Munakata from the next attempt to assassinate him? Perhaps the universe's purpose in keeping Munakata alive had been to use _him_ to prevent Suoh Mikoto's Sword of Damocles from wiping out all those schoolkids and other innocent people on and around the Academy island (even though the civilians and clansmen had been evacuated from the island, they'd never have outrun the resulting tsunami). A little more than a year after that, Zenjou had stood ready to kill Munakata before the Blue king's own Sword of Damocles could fall and destroy probably the whole of Tokyo. Instead of having to behead his second king, however, Zenjou had been able to stand back and watch as Awashima frantically tried to take the burden onto her own shoulders, only to be spared once the Silver king destroyed the Dresden Slate – and all the Swords of Damocles.

It was another pretty idea to think that Kusuhara had died so that the Blue king could prevent a holocaust, then play a role in ending the slate that had been the cause of so many troubles.

But Zenjou didn't go in for pretty thoughts. The young fellow was dead, and there was nothing he could do about it, no platitudes he could twist into a pleasing pattern. He'd lost him, and that was all Zenjou could feel Kusuhara's absence to be. The kid had become a missing piece in his soul.

The other sickening thing was that Zenjou knew Munakata had actually tried to push Kusuhara out of Sceptre 4. He hadn't been suited for the frontline troops, with his inability to fight in coordination with others. Munakata had as much as told him so by transferring him out of the swordsmen's unit, and giving him a short deadline for defeating Awashima in one-to-one combat – a deadline that should have been impossible. But in spite of (or, once again, because of) all the odds against it, Kusuhara had met the criteria, stayed in Sceptre 4, and shifted back to the combat side.

Munakata had given Kusuhara a chance to leave and live, and the pup hadn't taken it. That fact, which gradually dawned on Zenjou only many weeks later, didn't make him feel any more positive towards Munakata. But it did allow him to settle into a state of… not resignation, but maybe… a willingness to let fate take its course. So even after the end of the Dresden Slate, and the end of his ostensible purpose here in Sceptre 4, Zenjou had chosen to stay in the Blue clan, with all its old memories of Habari Jin, and the more recent memories of Kusuhara, haunting him.

A part of Zenjou detested Munakata to the core. Another part respected him for his full willingness to shoulder all his responsibilities as the Blue king, and for standing prepared to be cut down by Zenjou once his Sword of Damocles began to fall. Yet another part watched Munakata with curiosity, to see where all that knowledge and insight was going to take him and the Blue clan.

Lately, Zenjou had also begun to wonder – what if Munakata _had_ succeeded in pushing Kusuhara out of Sceptre 4 and thus out of harm's way? Would someone else have become the sacrificial piece who would have made Sceptre 4 whole? Would someone have had to die, one way or another, to make the Blue clan stronger? Munakata had to have known, based on his superhuman perception of the patterns of the world, and the way things were going, that a wild card – a joker in the Sceptre 4 pack – would end up being sacrificed by some means, even if it wasn't his specific intention to have someone killed.

And it wasn't long after Kusuhara's death that Zenjou realised the Blue king in fact already had a wild card before Kusuhara. It was a boy he'd been keeping in the Intelligence division for more than half a year before Kusuhara joined Sceptre 4. Zenjou didn't know this at the time, of course – he hadn't taken any note whatsoever of the existence of one Fushimi Saruhiko. But later, he'd worked out that Fushimi, with his battle-ready Homra background, would have done far better than Kusuhara in the swordsmen's troops.

Despite the fact that the boy was a skilled fighter, Munakata had kept Fushimi in Intelligence the whole time Kusuhara was struggling to make the cut. Fushimi had spent his first year and a half in Sceptre 4 gathering intelligence on targets, getting sent out on tricky missions personally assigned by Munakata, and had not been required to participate in the regular training routines undergone by combat personnel.

Now _there_ was a wild card and joker in the pack who surely ought to have played the role of the "missing piece that didn't fit", because if there was anyone who didn't slot nicely into a perfect picture, it was Fushimi.

Yet, Munakata had withheld that card, and only after Kusuhara had died – in fact, on the very day after Kusuhara's funeral – had he transferred Fushimi to the special operations squad. No, Fushimi was not a replacement for Kusuhara; however, it was possible that Kusuhara had been the sacrifice in place of the other boy.

Perhaps it wasn't right of Zenjou to feel this way, and perhaps it wasn't fair, but somewhere inside him, he felt as if Kusuhara Takeru had died so that Fushimi Saruhiko wouldn't have to.

As Zenjou looked out over the grounds now and thought of his first sight of Kusuhara, the very two other people who had just been occupying his thoughts entered the picture: Munakata and Fushimi, walking together near the perimeter of the training grounds, beneath the falling blossoms.

There was some messy business going on right now about a Strain releasing computer-based games that could drive ordinary humans crazy while making them telekinetic. Zenjou didn't have all the details as the case was still so new that the reports hadn't come to him for archiving yet. But he'd heard from Yoshino Yayoi and some of Kusuhara's old squad mates that a Red clansman had been seriously injured yesterday morning before the Red king had saved his life by summoning a power that may originally have come from the slate.

As usual, Fushimi was in the thick of investigations – he was always handling the toughest cases, it seemed. He'd created quite the stir, that boy, by fooling everyone into thinking he'd defected to Jungle at Christmas, only for it all to turn out to be yet another secret mission the Blue king had sent him on. He'd returned in January, badly wounded but alive, and it still wasn't clear to most people, Zenjou included, how he'd managed to make it out of that subterranean labyrinth in one piece.

He and Munakata were probably discussing the case now, but doing so under the sakura trees, away from everyone else, gave the impression that they were alone for personal reasons. Their postures weren't inappropriate, though. Munakata's hands were clasped behind his back as they walked side by side, while Fushimi was slouching as always, one hand in a pocket. An occasional nod of the head from Munakata told Zenjou they were in conversation, although at this distance, he could not hear their voices.

Then they stopped under one of the trees and stood next to each other, still talking, judging by the slight movements of their heads, and a shrug or two from Fushimi.

 _The captain's favourite._

Zenjou wasn't one for gossip – he preferred to mind his own business and keep to the shadows. But after Kusuhara's death, he'd hardly been able to avoid hearing talk of Fushimi's meteoric rise. It was the first time he had heard that Fushimi was someone who'd been whispered to be "the captain's favourite" when he'd first joined Sceptre 4 from Homra at the age of 16. He was still only 18 when he'd been transferred to the special operations squad and become third in command of Sceptre 4, while also holding the position of chief of Intelligence.

Zenjou remembered how Kusuhara, too, had been called the captain's favourite at one point – probably after people had grown tired of calling Fushimi that, they'd transferred the title to the newer rookie who was kept on despite not fitting in, and who had to have been whispered of as the pup who often kept late hours in the dojo and in the bath alone with Zenjou and the captain. When he'd died and Fushimi had risen, the name of "favourite" had apparently made its way back to the latter.

Perhaps the title had always belonged to Fushimi; Kusuhara had been the decoy offered like a sacrifice demanded by angry gods and demons – _again, another unfair thought_. But it was hard for Zenjou not to give room to such notions as he looked out at the two figures under the falling, dying flowers. _The captain and his twisted pretty boy._

He watched as Munakata bent down as if to look more closely at Fushimi's face – an action that seemed to cause Fushimi to lean back, away from him – and then the Blue king reached a hand out and brushed a flower petal off Fushimi's hair.

Feeling a tightness in his chest he had no wish to feel, Zenjou closed the curtain and returned to his work, unable to bear the sight beyond the window any more.

…

"I know how to catch this person," Fushimi said to Munakata, after they'd returned to headquarters from Nanakamado. "But I will require your authorisation to work directly with the Gold clan."

"You said before that normal tracing methods wouldn't work as the culprit has covered his tracks through his Strain powers," Munakata commented.

They were walking through the training grounds after Awashima had left them in the car park and gone indoors to make arrangements for the captain and herself to meet the Red and Silver kings at Homra.

"Even the aura-sensitive systems we've used all these years to monitor the kings' Weismann levels and unusual concentrations of slate-originated aura aren't of help here, because this Strain seems to have a talent for concealment," Fushimi confirmed. "I suspect that the culprit's powers allow him to screen himself off from detection by normal physical senses and aura-enhanced ones. These powers seem to apply to his use of computers and the Internet as well, and I guess we could classify this as a subset of perception-interference ability. With such a Strain power, for all we know, he could have snooped around in Jungle's server intermittently even before the final battle without being caught by the Green king. When I infiltrated Jungle, I was privy to information about all the key Jungle members and potential members, both Strain and non-Strain, whom Hisui Nagare regarded as interesting and full of promise. But I heard nothing of such an individual, even though these abilities would have intrigued Hisui. This person managed to stay off the Green king's radar."

"And ours," Munakata remarked.

"Yup. Sceptre 4's records have nothing on any registered Strains with similar abilities at such advanced levels. That crazy cat of the Silver king's would come the closest, but she doesn't dabble in computer programmes, nor is her perception interference concealment-specialised."

"Taking all that into consideration, what is your plan for finding this person?"

"During our discussions with that Rabbit today, it occurred to me that we could use some of the technology they're developing to stop this Strain."

"Oh?"

"Captain, I need to be on the team working on the project to map clansmen's specific brainwaves to the artificial aura we're already using. I'll need your full authorisation and influence with the Gold clan to do that."

"The project hasn't begun yet, and we do not know if it will succeed," Munakata reminded him.

"There is no reason for it not to," Fushimi argued. "For years, up until two months ago, all we had was that general substance emitting frequencies that neutralised slate-originated aura to infuse the shackles we used on criminal Strains and clansmen. But once the slate was destroyed, and the clans could no longer be complacent, Nanakamado's researchers were able to swiftly adapt that general substance into one that could neutralise both Strain aura and general psychic wavelengths. Then, within two days of the first psychokinetic attack, with the data I sent them, the researchers were able to further adapt the substance into one that would counteract the specific wavelengths emitted by advanced users of the app. I see no reason why they won't be able to do the same with the artificial aura and customise it to respond to our brainwaves. That artificial aura itself was created in mere weeks, once the Gold clan determined that their king would no longer return, and it is ready for further development."

"If the project does succeed, how do you intend to use the aura?"

"The squad we stationed at Daiichi has shown that in a real situation, the generic aura can act as a dense forcefield the way clan aura could, but they could only switch it on or off from their test shields. Artificial aura mapped to each clansman's brainwaves, however, can theoretically be modulated finely like clan powers, and modified to each individual's talents. I could potentially work it into a digital platform as I track down this Strain's IP address and physical location."

"But this person's ability is concealment. That is why we haven't been able to trace his location at all."

"He can conceal his presence and trails, but he can't conceal the presence of a programme he wants to disseminate," Fushimi said. "Part of my plan is to use the aura to create an alert system that is programmed to recognise the unique signatures of the brain-training games he stole. I've already noted the details he altered from my original exercises, and the details he's kept identical because they're integral to the effectiveness of the games. I'll have to dig those old exercises out of that storage drive that's been rusting in one of my drawers for years to confirm the exact details for an accurate signature, but it can be done."

"You plan to trap him when he uses his concealment powers to get around the block we've asked the app stores to put in place against his programme?"

"Yes. He may change the icon to avoid immediate visual detection by the administrators, or he may give the app a name this time – the first version had no name and simply ran under '(no title)'. He may also tweak a few details to the first couple of games so they'll look different, but the whole body of games will have the same signature, so if I use the aura to set up a detection system, I'll know when he's uploading the programme."

"But his concealment power remains. Even if you catch his act of uploading the programme, how will you catch _him_?"

"By infecting him with a virus powered by the improved aura, very much the same way the Green king once infected me by transmitting that mental sickness which leaped from the digital world of my devices into the physical one of my head."

"How, precisely, do you plan to infect him?"

"Without aura, we can't replicate the Green king's method of infecting me. But with the artificial aura once it's improved, I can combine the frequencies of the Strain-neutralising substances we already have with the virus, which I will first spread to the servers of the major app stores."

"Thus, when our culprit connects to the servers…"

"The virus will weaken his Strain powers, exposing him to me and my aura-powered tracking programme, which will at the same time alert me to his activity."

"This will all have to depend on his re-uploading his app, won't it?" Munakata asked.

"He's clearly got a grudge against both ordinary humans and the clans, driving his human users crazy the way he has so far, while manipulating them to make trouble for us who destroyed the slate. He hasn't taken aim at the Silver clan so far, but that may be because he hasn't worked out yet that Adolf K. Weismann is alive – all his information on the clans seems to have come from hacking the Jungle server, which was destroyed before Weismann regained his original body. Well, whatever his issues with us are, it's not likely that he _won't_ upload his programme again."

"What if he puts it up before you're ready?"

"I'll use an aura-powered programme to cause a glitch in his app while also hiding traces of what I've done. He'll have to come back online to smooth it out, and I'll get him then."

They'd stopped walking and were now standing under one of the sakura trees lining the perimeter.

"I realise that your plan is still in its very rudimentary stages, as you must have thought it up less than an hour ago," Munakata remarked. "Even so, it is too full of holes. It depends too heavily on technology that has not been developed yet, and relies on our assumption that the Strain will behave a certain way. Also, what you're proposing concerning the artificial aura is unnecessarily complicated – it would be more straightforward to employ a reliable Strain ally under our supervision to carry out the process of infusing the alert and virus with the aura required. Strains still possess slate-originated aura, whereas the rest of us are left with little or none, so it will be simpler that way."

"It won't be as effective to get a Strain to do this, because the virus will be infused with Strain-weakening frequencies – the result will be poorer if the very person doing the infusing is himself weakened by the substance. I won't be affected by it when using the artificial aura, as those frequencies don't act against it."

"We ourselves were able to handle the aura-neutralising shackles for years. We used them easily whenever we arrested Strains, even though those shackles were also able to work against us. All we needed to do was to take precautions when utilising them," Munakata pointed out.

The unwelcome image of Suoh in his jail cell, heavily cuffed at the wrists, projected itself uninvited into both Munakata's and Fushimi's minds. Along with it came the memory of the dreaded knowledge they had even back then that mere shackles would never be able to contain the flames and rage of a king. Munakata's desperation to save Suoh – to become the safety valve for the Red king that had been lost when Totsuka died – had been expressed in frustration, through the manhandling of his prisoner, and Fushimi had glimpsed some of those moments of barely-controlled emotion even though they had not been intended for his eyes.

He forced the memories and impressions out of his head and asked his captain quietly: "Isn't this a good opportunity to find out how far and how well we could wield artificial aura, though? The technology isn't developed yet, but it _will_ be. I've studied it and calculated the workability of all the permutations, and there's nothing to bar the Nanakamado researchers from succeeding. It's only a matter of what form it will take, what tools we can use to contain it and wield it, and adapting the tools to specific needs."

"Hmm."

Fushimi dragged a sly smile onto his face to chase Suoh's ghost a little further away, saying: "Employing a Strain to do this is just the easy way out, and not even the best way. I can do it better. That's a warped version of _my_ programme floating out there – it's something I know well, and I know all the weak places through which I can reach in, reach through and snare this person, better than anyone else does. Yes, it relies on many assumptions about the culprit's behaviour, but so does any regular stakeout. It just needs round-the-clock patience, a lot of skill and discretion, and a great sense of timing."

"And you plan to be the first test subject for the customised artificial powers?"

"It's my responsibility to catch this criminal," Fushimi shrugged.

"What risks are you taking that you're not telling me about?"

"Like you've ever given a shit about the risks I've taken to fulfil any of my missions over the last three and a half years," Fushimi scowled.

"But I'm interested now," Munakata said with a smile, leading Fushimi to wonder about the possible double entendre.

"You weren't interested before?" he queried, testing the waters.

"I believe I was always interested, but I was certain that you were unwilling," Munakata replied. "Also, to be honest, I may not previously have been in a frame of mind that would have made it fair to you to be asked by me."

"But now you are?"

"The conditions have improved greatly. So do you wish to be open with me?"

Fushimi considered both meanings of the question, and answered them in one: "I'll have a think about it."

"Please do. In the meantime, I'll pave the way for you."

"Just get me into that Gold clan project," Fushimi requested, and at once, it transported them back into the dimension of single meanings.

"Very well. But remember that you belong here. I do not wish to hear next that some Rabbit or other has recruited you the way I did."

"Me in a rabbit mask? That's absurd."

Munakata bent forward and peered into his face, and Fushimi leaned back warily.

"What?" he asked.

"Blue suits you best," Munakata declared, reaching a hand up to brush a sakura petal out of Fushimi's hair. "Pink isn't your colour at all, and neither were red or green, and I'd be very unhappy to see you in gold and black."

"Ugh – why did we have to walk over here, anyway?" Fushimi grumbled. "Are there any more flowers in my hair?"

"Alas, no," Munakata smiled ruefully. "Although pink isn't your colour, the blossom still looked charming on your head. What are the possibilities, do you think, of our being able to cultivate sakura in blue?"

"Captain," Fushimi sighed. "If we've moved on to the topic of botany, I'm getting back to work now. Ask your Onii-san about sakura, not me – and call your Rabbit friend about getting me clearance for that project, please."

"Ah, yes, speaking of my brother – he asked me a few days ago when I could bring you home for a meal again. My mother asked the same about Lieutenant Awashima, as they both seem to have an interest in food and cooking. But my brother was hoping to see you, as Umi and Kai still talk about you."

Fushimi stared at Munakata, thinking of the long, _long_ day during the period of the Gold king's disappearance that he and Awashima had spent at Munakata's parents' home, having been invited there after running into Munakata Taishi overseeing the landscaping at Mihashira Tower. Awashima seemed to have had a good time chatting with the captain's mother, but Fushimi had been like a miserable rock to which the limpet of the captain's nephew Kai had clung, and even his niece, Umi, had regarded him with fascination.

It had worn Fushimi out completely, just as it had once exhausted him to have to deal with Misaki's siblings when they had been little.

"I… erm… I'll have a think about that too," he mumbled, while running through all his options for worming his way out of the visit.

"I'd be delighted if you would," Munakata beamed.

"Just don't go announcing it," Fushimi warned. "Thanks to your misleading statements last night, I've had no end of trouble. If those gossipmongers now hear something about you bringing me home to meet your family, I swear they'll be asking us when the happy day is. And Misaki will…"

He stopped, remembering that there would be something he'd need to do after working on his plans to catch this Strain – he'd have to talk to Misaki, calmly this time.

"Mm, I did hear that Yata-san and you had something of an argument today about last night," Munakata said. Then, making a tangential reference that recalled the conversation they'd had in the office the night before last, he added: "I'm sure that to Yata-san, it must have looked as if the matchmaker was stealing the bride."

"Who – what the hell? Who's the _bride_?" Fushimi snapped, glaring at Munakata before stalking away towards the main building in a huff.

Munakata chuckled to himself, gave Fushimi a bit of a lead, then strolled after him at a more leisurely pace, thinking of blue sakura.

* * *

 **Note:** When Munakata and Fushimi refer to the Strain, I've used "he", "him" and "his" for simplicity's sake, as it's unwieldy to keep repeating "he or she" and "him or her". I hope this streamlining also reflects how, if they were speaking in Japanese, most of the pronouns would have no gender. As the characters don't know the identity of the Strain, or even if there's more than one person involved, "he", "him" and "his" are intended here to cover both sexes and an unknown number of suspects.

* * *

 **Art:** I love everything about Anonymous Fanatic's drawing for this chapter (it's at anonfanatic dot deviantart dot com slash art slash Becoming-Art-Chapter-8-622912827 ). The look of almost-innocent surprise on Fushimi's face, the cherry blossoms filling the background, the light of the sun dappling Munakata's and Fushimi's hair and clothes, the beautiful colours and the sense that they're in their own world.


	9. A Time To Heal

**A Time To Heal**

Knowing he was in a dream did not lessen his helplessness in it, or numb the anguish. Something in him died all over again as he struck to kill the one he had longed most deeply to keep whole and well. He wouldn't let Suoh down or betray his own integrity, so Tenrou's blade drove clean and true through that lionheart, connecting him with Suoh and in the same stroke severing them from each other forever. The powerful muscle pulsed once, twice, thrice, throbbing through the blade to Munakata's hand gripping the hilt, against which he could feel his own pulse racing as Suoh's faltered. Even then, a few moments more of life remained, a final embrace, last words that were not for him, then silence.

But in the world of dreams, the sadness only grew. Sometimes they talked, desultorily, in a life beyond the life of the illusion. Sometimes their lips met, but Suoh's kiss was always chased by a mocking, infuriating smile. Sometimes he walked away, drawing on his cigarette, and Munakata couldn't follow, because he was rooted to the ground with resentment and grief and unreturned desire.

However, on this night, they clung to each other, no blade between them, Munakata claiming Suoh only through his tongue penetrating that hot, smoky mouth, and his cock buried deep inside the other man. Warm, dry hands clutching his back, working roughly through his hair, powerful thighs pressed against his hips, chapped lips and wet tongue returning his kiss ferociously. Munakata tearing his mouth away to bury his face in his lover's neck as he climaxed inside him, feeling the answering searing spurts from Suoh's cock against his belly, coating their skin. Suoh grunting, animalistic, against his shoulder as he came, matching the deep, panted breaths from Munakata vapourising against the other's ear.

He pulled out of him and held him. In his state of satiation, he clung to Suoh, who was softening beneath him in every inch of his body, letting Munakata rest his head against the curve of his throat, wrap an arm around his waist, slide a thigh between his legs, brushing the coarseness of that nest of fiery hair at his crotch. And even in that state approaching contentment… so close, but not quite… Munakata embraced him knowing he'd already lost him.

The low, gravelly, bemused voice drifting into his ear: "Was this really what you wanted, Munakata? It's the most I could ever have given you."

And his dream self answering what he would have even in full consciousness: "Wasn't I enough for you, Suoh? Was it so impossible to be with me?"

The light huff in response: "Ah, no – you're perfect, you know. Couldn't ask for more. But you're a way smarter man than I ever was. You can't not know that the heart doesn't obey good sense – 'specially mine."

He'd huffed back against Suoh's cheek, rough with barely-visible stubble. "I know that only too well."

"I hear you, Munakata – all the things you've never said. We're equals, you say – you and I, we belong together, you believe – how could we not, we're kings who understand each other the way no one else does, you think – why can't I love you, you wonder, eh?"

It hurt. It stabbed him to his core to hear everything he'd never uttered coming back to him through that lazy, damnably desirable voice. Within this dream, he could not recall if he'd ever wept in another dream, but if he had to, it might just be now, except…

"You're a bloody infuriating king to me, just like I must've been to you too," Suoh was whispering huskily. "But infuriating or not, and as much as we'd have loved to kill each other a million times over, there's nothing not to love about you, you fool. Just that… it wasn't meant to be."

"It's easy for you to say when you weren't the one trying so hard," he whispered back, struggling against plaintiveness.

"We'd never even have been able to be friends, and you wanted us to be lovers and more?" Suoh chuckled, his hand tracing invisible patterns across the ridge of Munakata's spine. "Aren't you too intelligent for that?"

"The heart doesn't obey good sense."

Another huff of soft laughter from Suoh at having his own words pushed back at him like an offensive piece over the face of a chessboard. The late Red king raised himself on one elbow, partially displacing Munakata. He looked at him, placed a hand over the Blue king's heart, and said: "But it hurts less now, I think? I'm not the only one burning you up in there any more."

"Killing you hurts as much as ever, you dolt," Munakata exhaled with an emotion entwining anger, misery and affection.

"Mm, yeah, but this – _this, us_ – isn't the wound it used to be, eh?" Suoh gave his charmingly lopsided smile. "Nice. You've picked another tough one to crack. You got a thing for self-punishment, Munakata?"

Munakata's pain eased as Suoh spoke, and for the first time, he understood: Killing Suoh would always haunt him, but the anguish of not being loved by him was a healing wound – it itched and ached sometimes, but it was closing up and mending, and one day, he would barely notice even the scar.

"He's not you," Munakata told Suoh. "Surprsingly, that is a good thing."

His heart lightened as he absorbed the honesty of his words. When Suoh, with a lazy smile, closed the gap between them and kissed him, Munakata tasted the bitterness of it, but the poison of resentment was fading. Suoh pulled back, smirking now, and murmured: "Look at you, Munakata – the next time it hurts to think of me, it'll only be your ego smarting, no more than that, huh?"

Another kiss, dusted only with pleasure this time, nothing tainted in it, then Munakata was awake, opening his eyes to the view of the ceiling above his bed where he lay alone, Suoh's dream-kisses dissolving on his tongue.

It was 5am. He got up, used the bathroom, cleaned his teeth, put on his uniform, and headed for his office. He signed off on reports, read proposals, answered important e-mail messages and forwarded the ones that needed follow-up to Awashima, Fushimi and the heads of administration. By the time Awashima stepped into his office at 7am, he had cleared a good amount of work.

"Captain, we should set off for Homra in 30 minutes if we are to be there by eight," Awashima reminded him.

"Yes, thank you. We should have more than enough time, as the school spring break is still on, and traffic is lighter overall. Have you seen Fushimi?"

"I saw Fushimi-kun leaving the premises an hour ago. I take it you've sent him on a mission?" the lieutenant asked.

"Has he already left?" Munakata asked, surprised. In fact, he'd been trying not to think of Fushimi this morning, because after that dream, all he'd felt like doing was to seek him out, lock them both into a room away from the world, and just be with him. But it would have been unbecoming behaviour, as well as unfair to Fushimi to be suddenly presented with the surprise of a clingy captain. So Munakata had kept himself occupied with work. However, he had at least hoped to see Fushimi before leaving for his appointment with the Silver and Red kings.

"Did you not send him out a job, sir?" It was Awashima's turn to be surprised.

"I did, but I didn't think he would leave as early as that," Munakata smiled. "Oh, it is just as well, for it will give them more time to work on him."

"Work _on_ him?"

"Fushimi-kun will be cooperating with the Gold clan's research team on a project. But…" Munakata's eyes gleamed mischievously. "…I've also arranged for a little extra treatment for him."

…

"Ozaki-sensei," Fushimi began, puzzled, looking back towards the corridor in the Nanakamado research facility that he'd thought they would be walking down. "Aren't we using the artificial-aura research lab?"

"For the project you'll be joining us on? Yes," Dr Ozaki replied. "But we're making another stop first. You're early, anyway."

"Another stop?"

"Didn't Captain Munakata tell you? He's arranged for you to go through a course of physiotherapy and any other necessary medical treatment to correct or at least manage the stiffness in your right leg. I understand that it came on after an injury you sustained in January."

"He _what_?" Fushimi gaped, staring at the doctor.

Unlike the elite team who had reported directly to the Gold king, and who always wore masks when acting in their capacity as clansmen, regular members (like the cruel researcher who had tormented Anna for months before she joined Homra) did not cover their faces most of the time when carrying out their clan roles. Dr Ozaki was one of them, and Fushimi stared into her dead-serious, crow's feet-lined brown eyes for a good ten seconds, but found absolutely no suggestion of a joke in them.

"He didn't tell you?" she asked, not sounding the least surprised. "Your participation in the artificial-aura project is conditional upon your going through whatever course of treatment I deem best for you after I've examined you. If you fail to complete even a single session of the treatment, your king will pull you from the project at once. Now, please, come in and sit down."

She led him into an examination room and closed the door. Fushimi could not keep back a scowl at the thought of Munakata setting him up this way, but realised after looking at it from various angles that the captain and the Gold clan had the upper hand here. He would have to cooperate in order to be part of this project. But really, that bloody man…

"All right, Fushimi-san," Dr Ozaki said, glancing at her computer screen. "We've had your medical files sent over from the hospital where you were first treated, and it says that you did not go for any of the scheduled follow-up sessions from mid-February onwards. If you have not regained your full range of motion six weeks after the stitches were removed, there are a few possibilities. The first is that complete healing of the wound is slower than expected – this may be influenced by factors such as your diet and how much rest you're getting. It is also possible that your muscles have stiffened since the wound healed because they have not been correctly or adequately strengthened and stretched. Troublesome scar tissue could be another cause. I'd like to have a look at the original wound site and observe the movements of the limb before determining our next step. Please remove your trousers and lie down on your left side on the examination couch. You may keep your underwear on for the time being, unless I need to see more."

 _Tch._ This woman's last line was almost as bad as Munakata's too-easy-to-misread statements. _That irritating, cunning man!_

No amount of internal ranting at his captain was going to improve his current lot, however. So for now, Fushimi could only grit his teeth and start unbuckling his belt.

…

It seemed an age since Kusanagi had seen Seri alone while off duty, and not smack in the middle of a crisis. Once again, this morning was about business, not pleasure, and they'd have plenty of company. However, any sight of her was better than none, so he couldn't hold back a silly smile when she walked into the bar with Munakata, both of them in civilian wear to avoid drawing attention to the fact that Sceptre 4 personnel were at Homra.

The other two visitors present today were the Silver king and his Black Dog. They'd agreed beforehand that Neko might distract Anna from what Weismann was proposing they do, so that girl from the school – what was her name? Kukuri? – had been asked to entertain Neko with pancakes for breakfast, followed by a shopping trip. Kusanagi wondered, though, if Neko's presence might not help to soothe Anna if things got rough. Too late to consider that now. He'd have to watch for signs of distress in his king and step in to break it up if necessary.

Weismann was going to ask Anna to "talk" to the powers freed from the slate. Kusanagi still wasn't sure it was a good idea, but the Silver and Blue kings, as well as the Gold clan, apparently, thought it best to know what to expect from these "specks".

He'd asked Seri over the phone:

 _"What do_ you _think? And I mean_ you _, Seri-chan, not Lieutenant Awashima of Sceptre 4."_

" _If you're asking for my personal opinion, then this is really about Anna."_

" _It's kinda' unnerving how well you can read me."_

" _I believe Anna is strong enough to handle this, and I know that all of us there – even Weismann – want to keep her safe throughout this."_

" _There's a risk, though, isn't there?"_

" _Everything we've done as clansmen has been a risk."_

" _Do you think it's worth the risk?"_

" _I'd ask Anna that if I were you."_

" _You want to know, though, don't you?"_

" _It's better to know than be in the dark."_

" _Knowing can be an awful burden too."_

" _Yes, but I'd rather understand where we're coming from so we have a clearer view of what may lie in our future."_

" _Ah, I was hoping you already had a very clear view of me in your future, Seri-chan," he'd teased._

" _I always have a very clear view of you in my future, Kusanagi-kun – whenever I plan to go shopping, you're the first one I think of to help me carry my bags."_

" _Woman, you have no heart."_

" _Kusanagi-kun, my heart seems to be beating just fine in my chest."_

" _Well, mine has just about given up the ghost."_

" _I'll send anko offerings to its funeral."_

She came to stand beside him now, which pleased him immeasurably, since she usually stood behind her king when they were with other clans in an official capacity. This time, she leaned back against the front of the bar counter next to him, their arms lightly touching. Munakata took his place on her other side, facing outward but still perching tidily on the barstool he'd sat in on his last personal visit to the bar for a glass of bourbon on the rocks – the same kind Suoh had preferred.

Weismann and Anna took the couch against the wall of the bar near the jukebox, while Kuroh pulled up a chair from one of the small tables across the bar from the couch.

For extra security, three Sceptre 4 special ops swordsmen were in an unmarked vehicle outside the bar, while Chitose and Dewa watched the side lane leading to the back from another van across the road.

"Anna-chan, before we start, I have a confession to make," Weismann declared. "Although I am the one who has been most actively seeking answers about the slate's past and our future. I am conflicted. I am not entirely comfortable with everything that was in my past, and although I am as curious as ever about the slate, I do fear finding out about the history of this power that has affected all our lives so deeply."

"I see," Anna said softly, and one could tell that she meant she understood as well as _saw_ what was in him.

"You do see, don't you?" he asked with a sad smile.

"Yes," she answered steadily, returning his smile with a gentle one of her own.

"For the benefit of the others, who cannot read my thoughts, I am admitting that there's a part of me that isn't sure how much I want to know, because it has been mere months since I decided to live for the future and not the past, and here I am now delving even further into the past than I ever have. I promise to guide Anna through every step of these questions I have for the loosed powers – I won't let her fumble through on her own. But I freely confess that I am rather afraid to learn what there may be to learn. I don't want to walk into this giving all of you the impression that I am proceeding without reservations. I truly do not know what is to come. At the same time, I wish to do this, because I believe we cannot walk into the future with these powers we once wielded floating loose around us, unless we come to terms with their past."

"Blessings also bring burdens; everything has two sides to it," Kuroh murmured thoughtfully to himself, almost as if he were quoting one of Miwa Ichigen's sayings.

"Absolutely, Kuroh!" Weismann exclaimed, startling his listeners. "Everything has two faces. Long ago, I was undecided between the two halves of me – one half loathed war and hoped the Dresden Slate would evolve humanity so greatly that it would end all wars. But there was the other half – the young man who was proud of his country, and who hoped, patriotically, that his own land would be the victor in that conflict. I expressed both hopes to Klaudia in private – that the slate would put an end to armed conflict, but that for now, I wished our great fatherland would emerge triumphant and bring order to the world. Funnily enough, it was meeting the Lieutenant – who openly expressed his hope for the slate to create super armies that could win the war – which strengthened the half of me that dreamed of an end to war. Hearing him speak of his military aims made me express the contrary, and want nothing to do with conflict. Although Klaudia and the Lieutenant shook their heads at me for being naïve, the Lieutenant himself changed his attitude when Klaudia died. He took on the hopes I had expressed for evolution, growth and peace, and faithfully carried out his duties to that end for 70 years, while I ran away and hid from the misery of my sister's death, and the horrible realities that had emerged about what the wartime leaders of my country had done to innocent people within and without its borders."

"It seems that Weismann-san is still conflicted today," Munakata observed drily.

"Ah… yes, well, that's more or less the end of my confession," Weismann said with a nervous laugh. "But Kuroh's comment about everything having two sides brings me to what I've been sensing from the fragments of power, and which I need Anna-chan's help to interpret more clearly. I'm sensing a strong duality in these powers – two sides to everything, two halves, two faces, stretching far back into the mists of time… but I can't grasp more than that. I believe only Anna-chan can."

"But Anna has never heard 'stories' from the slate about itself, have you, Anna?" Kusanagi asked.

Anna shook her head and affirmed: "Even when Mizuchi Koushi tried to turn me into the Blue king in the research facility, and forced me to connect with the slate, I could sense life and will in it, but no story. It was the same when I synchronised at last with the slate as I became the Red king – I sensed its will and consciousness, but it told me nothing of itself."

"That is quite similar to what I went through, except that no one had attempted beforehand to compel me to be in sync with the slate. What about you, Munakata-san?" Weismann asked, looking at the Blue king.

It was a dreadfully personal question. Kusanagi had deduced, from Suoh's and Anna's experiences, that the process of being chosen as a king by the slate was a profound one that could be painful, terrifying, enlightening or dismaying, and he wasn't sure that Munakata, who often seemed to gaze down at others from a far higher place than they occupied, would wish to speak of his private experience to them.

To his surprise, the Blue king answered frankly: "I sensed the slate's will and its memories."

"Its memories?" Weismann sounded surprised.

"They related only to the Blue clan – I saw how it had chosen Blue kings, and saw all who had been connected to it through Blue aura. Understanding the clan's history meant that I knew exactly what I was required to do, what role I was to play, and how I could improve Sceptre 4. But it imparted no memories beyond that – and no details about other clans – which was why I was curious to learn more about them."

That curiosity had led to his first confrontation with Suoh, thought Kusanagi, recalling that inaugural scrap between the two kings.

"It must be different for everyone," Weismann murmured.

"But if anyone were to hear the slate's story, wouldn't it be Anna?" Kusanagi asked. "Anna has always known the innermost truth of conscious beings. Wouldn't the history of a living rock be a huge part of its truth?"

"I believe memories of itself were shackled," Weismann explained. "Common sense tells us that the maze of markings and inscriptions on its surface, including the 'Rex' engraving on it, had to have been made by man or other intelligent beings. In my research on the slate years ago, and more recently when I looked over my old notes, I deduced that these markings were not what gave the slate power. Rather, the markings were a means of containing and channelling its power, although I never solved the mystery of why, or how."

"So Anna wasn't able to connect with its history because it couldn't tell her – it was… gagged, so to speak?" Kusanagi inquired.

"That is my guess," Weismann replied.

"But now that the slate and the markings that controlled and channelled the power are destroyed?" Awashima asked.

"The power is free."

"Wasn't it already free when the Green king let the seals on it deteriorate, and allowed it to affect people all over the world?" Awashima questioned further.

"As a matter of fact, no," Weismann smiled. "The seals on it that the Gold king maintained were meant to prevent the imprisoned power from running amok and imparting superhuman abilities to people everywhere – rather like the switch on a laser device determining whether the beam of light emerges or not. But even with the seals gone, it remained a trapped power being beamed out from the vessel containing it. Now, however, both the switch as well as the vessel have been destroyed, and the power that was inside has truly been loosed – no longer being used by someone trying to spread it all over the world as the Green king did, but really free."

"So it is now able to tell its story," Munakata remarked.

"I believe so," Weismann agreed.

"Then why hasn't Anna heard it yet?" Kusanagi asked.

"Because she hasn't been asking it questions," Weismann stated with a smile.

" _You're_ the only one who's been doing the asking," Kuroh said.

"Yes. And unlike Anna, I haven't the ability to hear the answers with clarity."

"So if you're gonna ask Anna to do the asking, what are the dangers? You said you truly do not know what is to come. Do you at least know what sort of risk is involved?" Kusanagi inquired.

Weismann looked a little nervous. "Well… I suppose that in theory… if the answers are just too mind-blowing and infinite, Anna-chan could…"

"Have her mind blown?" Kusanagi growled.

"Well…"

"Not on your life," Kusanagi stated flatly, crossing his arms.

"Izumo," Anna said, looking up at him with a smile in her eyes. "It's all right."

"You haven't started asking these powers anything yet," Kusanagi told her. "You don't know that it'll be all right. We don't know if they're malicious or benevolent."

"I'll stop if it becomes _not_ all right," she assured him.

"Will you be _able_ to? What if you sync with the powers and they don't release you? What if they used to be safe for us to wield only because they were shackled? What if, now that they are loosed, they're like wild beasts uncaged?"

"I want to hear their story," Anna said confidently. "They saved Misaki and me from the madman when we most needed them. I believe they will not harm me."

"There is another matter to consider," Munakata spoke.

"What is it, Captain?" asked Awashima.

"The Red king is able to grasp the inmost truth of anyone and anything with consciousness, and I have no doubt that she has done so admirably with humans and animals and, to some extent, the shackled powers in the slate. However, the freed powers are probably on a scale beyond anything Kushina-san has ever attempted to communicate with, and they may not even speak to her in a verbal language, but in impressions or emotions. Kushina-san, for all her knowledge, is still a child. Will she be able to interpret these messages that come to her as you hope she can, Weismann-san?"

"Anna, it is true that sometimes, when you see certain things about a person, you still haven't the maturity to understand their full significance," Kusanagi agreed. "It could be worse if the powers don't communicate to you in a verbal language. That's when you won't even have the option of reporting what they say verbatim and letting us decipher the words – it really will be all filtered through your child's mind. And it isn't likely to be as simple as interpreting images and feelings from a familiar creature like a Strain horse – it could be far more bewildering than dealing with Basashi."

"Even so, I will do my best to say what I hear, see or feel accurately," Anna said with a quiet certainty. "Now that Weismann is asking me to learn their history, I _am_ sensing something from the powers about themselves. I believe they want us to know."

"Excellent," Weismann beamed. "You are ready to do this now, Anna-chan?"

She nodded.

"Anna, at any time – _any time_ – you do not feel at all comfortable, pull back immediately, no matter what they're telling you, y'hear?" Kusanagi said firmly.

"I promise, Izumo," she smiled.

"All right," Weismann said. "I'm going to start with a question of a middling level of difficulty, so that I can gauge the complexity of the responses we may get, and also how well Anna-chan will be able to convey them to us."

"Weismann-san," Kusanagi said sternly. "Remember – Anna's safety comes before all else."

"I know that very well, Kusanagi-san," Weismann assured him. "Now, Anna-chan, the first question I hope you can connect with the powers about is this: Was the stone that we knew as the Dresden Slate a living thing?"

 _That's too complex_ , Kusanagi thought. But he kept quiet and watched Anna's face for the first sign of serious difficulty or pain. Knowing Anna as he did, he knew that she wasn't simply passing on the question to the powers like an interpreter would between two parties. Anna's Strain abilities went beyond that – they were not limited to receiving information through direct queries; rather, she was holding Weismann's question in her heart and mind as she approached and searched the powers for the truth in them that would be an answer to the question. It was a complex and delicate process even when she was reading a human from scratch, so this must be much harder.

Anna frowned a little, and Kusanagi wanted to jump in and stop her, but he held himself back – he had to trust her and Weismann at least a little, and she was simply trying to process what she sensed, that was all, right? He twitched again when her frown deepened, but Seri touched him lightly on the arm. _Patience. Trust Anna_ , was what her touch said.

He exhaled when Anna's eyes at last refocused from their distant search, and she met Weismann's eyes before saying: "The stone was a stone. It is what was sealed in the stone that was alive once. In a way, they are still alive, but not in a form in which they used to be. Only their consciousness and heart were alive from the time they were imprisoned in the stone."

"Thank you," Weismann said softly. "May I ask the next question?"

"Yes."

"What are they, these living beings that were sealed into the stone?"

Anna searched the powers again, for several long minutes this time, before she blinked and said: "I'm not very sure if I understand this completely, but I think I am not wrong to describe them as a god and a demon."

 _What?_ Kusanagi instinctively sensed his own reaction being echoed by everyone else in the bar. He couldn't definitely say what he'd been expecting the original "life" in the slate to be – probably alien technology, or some bizarre natural phenomenon, if he'd had to throw out a couple of guesses – but _a god and a demon_? Seriously? Did this intelligence loosed from the slate think they were still in the Dark Ages, or what?

Kuroh, however, said thoughtfully: "Ichigen-sama used to say that throughout history, humans might have called beings whose abilities they did not understand gods or demons. Indeed, don't we agree that ordinary people who saw us when we had our full powers might have thought they were looking at supernatural beings? But Ichigen-sama himself prayed at shrines and respected powers we could not see, and he also said that we must not close our minds off to the possibility that beings who are indeed gods or demons may exist."

Weismann, too, seemed ready to roll with the revelation, turning to his clansman with a smile. "Kuroh, that is exactly how I feel. So, Anna-chan, we shall proceed on the assumption that they are what they tell you they are. Now, can they tell us why they were sealed into the stone?"

Further searching returned this answer from the Red king: "The gods were angry with them and sealed them into a great rock, because this god and this demon loved each other."

"What are their names? Do we know them from mythology?"

 _One question at a time, Weismann!_ Kusanagi mentally clicked his tongue at the Silver king. But Anna proved more than equal to the task, for she conveyed the information she found: "Gods and demons have no need for names because they know who they are. You need names only if you do not have enough of a… permanent sense of who you are."

"True. Only humans need to label ourselves and everyone and everything else with a name," Weismann chuckled. "But did humans long ago give names of their own to this god and demon?"

Anna sought the answer in the powers, and came up with this: "When they first lived, and when they were sealed into the rock, there were no humans on the earth."

"Very well. Now, my next question may be slightly… upsetting, but I believe we need to know this."

Anna looked at Weismann, saw what was on his mind, and her eyes widened. "So you really think that…" she whispered.

"Yes, Anna," the Silver king said a little sadly: "I want to ask them if it was their purpose from the start to destroy the Dresden Slate. And I want to know if they manipulated all of us – kings, clansmen, Strains – in order to achieve that purpose."

Anna looked troubled, but she applied her insight once again to the powers that, apparently, were floating loose all around them. Kusanagi tensed when she frowned. Then he badly wanted to hug her and tell her that all would be well when her eyes betrayed a hint of sadness that hadn't been there a moment before. But he took Seri's hand, felt the answering pressure from her strong, reassuring grip, and waited patiently until Anna refocused on them from several minutes of searching for the answers.

"Yes," Anna said, her voice a mere whisper, and her eyes glistening with a trace of tears. "Yes, they wanted to destroy the rock they had been sealed in. When the seals were strong, they had little control over who became kings, but they still tried to create kings who would eventually see the need to end the stone. Yes, they used all of us. And eventually, they succeeded."

* * *

 **Note:** Anna looks as if she has drifted into a world of her own - which in a sense she has - in this evocative drawing by Anonymous Fanatic at anonfanatic dot deviantart dot com slash art slash Becoming-Art-Chapter-9-624428991.


	10. Make Of It What You Will

**Make Of It What You Will**

The lad was compelling to behold. He was a contradiction of swiftness and awkwardness, fine lines and bluntness, and laser-sharp brilliance muted beneath the cover of his thin, slouching frame and lazy voice.

The elder clansman of the Timeless Palace had looked in on Fushimi Saruhiko earlier as he'd been dragged through the physiotherapy session the Blue king had cunningly forced him into. He had been drawn by the host of opposing points that somehow added up to one very watchable young man: delicately built, yet battle-hardened; petulant, as if born with an attitude of entitlement, yet almost violent in his reluctance to accept help; elegant in face and form, yet deliberately twisted in his harsh language and smirks.

Now, standing near the far wall of the artificial-aura lab, the elder clansman looked on from behind his rabbit mask as Fushimi went through a bank of data with Dr Sakamoto Shinya, chief researcher of the artificial-aura project, and Dr Ozaki Junko, the physician responsible for the well-being of the participants.

"I've reduced the essentials of the brain-training games, in sequence, to this graph," Fushimi was saying in what sounded like one long, bored grumble. "The mid-level peaks in red coincide with the points at which the games were adapted to avoid engaging the parts of the brain that are most active when Strains activate their aura. The adaptations elude clansmen too, as your old MRI scans and electrode readings of Gold clan members utilising aura show similar processes between Strains and clansmen. The high-level peaks in green are where alterations were made to speed up the release of the particular combination of electrical and chemical signals that enable susceptible people to move objects psychokinetically. Again, this differs from the processes in Strains and clansmen, where different sets of signals are released without damaging the brain's chemical balance to cause disorientation, paranoia and hallucinations. I've mapped these points of difference against the data you provided last night from your scans, and I believe my data can refine a few areas in yours."

"This may indeed smooth out certain points in our findings, which should help us improve the customisation of artificial aura for use specifically by clansmen," Dr Sakamoto agreed as he glanced over the graphs. "It may even speed up the process towards our ultimate aim of customising the aura to individual users. You've done a good, quick and thorough job here in one night for someone who insists he knows nothing about this area of work."

Fushimi did not acknowledge the comments other than with a brief nod, and to less-schooled eyes, he might have seemed arrogant. But the two senior doctors overseeing the project, and the elder clansman here as an observer, had been studying the behaviour of remarkable people for decades. In their view, the brusqueness was a veneer put up by – essentially – a child uneasy with attention from others and uncomfortable with praise. His refined features and the wary glow in his blue eyes made him resemble nothing so much as a beautiful but dangerous wild animal that would behave tamely only as long as it pleased him.

Dr Sakamoto went on: "We've also scanned and recorded your brainwave patterns –the first we've had of someone who previously wielded three auras. According to our initial readings – which, as you saw earlier, were elicited by having you focus on specific activities in the same way you would have when using your different auras in the past, and comparing this against our Gold clan and Strain testers – it appears that all slate-originated auras generate similar brain signals. The variations are very slight. Our subject pool is still too small to state this conclusively, but I have little reason to believe the results won't be borne out through further study – except that the kings may vastly exceed the rest of us in their output and capacity."

"The kings have always been different," Fushimi murmured, almost to himself.

"Well, the fine-tuning and customisation will come later. For now, let's work on what we _can_. This is the latest version of the crystals we have created to emit a frequency similar to that which once came from the Dresden Slate," said Dr Sakamoto, handing Fushimi a translucent white rock of a size to be easily held in an adult's palm. "Although His Excellency did not often approve projects that directly involved the slate, those rare go-aheads over the decades did enable our researchers to study the original aura closely. In the months before His Excellency left us, he finally gave permission for us to begin studies aimed at reproducing the slate's aura artificially. Kokujouji-sama foresaw that the slate might change or be lost, and wanted us to continue being able to protect ourselves and the people around us. He did not allow us to carry out actual replication of the aura for fear it would fall into the wrong hands. But after he left us, and more urgently after the slate was destroyed, we were able to apply our research and create these crystals."

"The first workable version was what we saw in action at Daiichi's headquarters," Fushimi remarked with a nod as he studied the crystal on his palm. "It did its job, but there was room for improvement."

"Indeed," Dr Sakamoto agreed. "That initial version was meant only to act as an expandable forcefield dense enough to repel physical projectiles – for basic defence. It had to be electrically switched on or off from the riot shields coated with the crystals, and anyone – even the most ordinary citizen – could have used it with the barest amount of training. It could hardly be modulated. The crystal you are holding, however, is an improved version created partly thanks to your suggestion a few months ago that we could make a substance that would react to the specific brainwave frequencies emitted by clansmen or Strains. More recently, armed with your data and the readings from the psychokinetic subjects, we could with far greater precision confirm the differences between our frequencies and those of people who never received the slate's powers. These newest crystals are the result. They cannot be activated by any external switch; they respond to brain signals. And they must be in contact with your skin in order to work. I know that makes them sound primitive – almost like those basic electrode-communicated computer devices that let any user move a cursor on the screen through thought alone. However, these crystals react only to the frequencies specific to clansmen and Strains. Regular humans – even the ones who proved so vulnerable to swift acquisition of psychokinetic abilities through the games – cannot use them at all."

"So this will produce artificial aura on demand by the user," Fushimi noted. "Without the danger of accidentally empowering members of the public who may stumble upon a crystal. But couldn't it theoretically work for the many people who were briefly affected by the Dresden Slate's powers when Jungle loosed them?"

"Not necessarily. Those affected only momentarily, and whose powers have disappeared since the slate was destroyed, have seen few brain electrical-signal changes. We had many come to us for testing – voluntarily, of course – in the weeks following the chaos. From our assessment, their changes are not deep enough to produce the same signals as from established clansmen, or from long-time Strains who still have powers. Even if we find some regular humans who are able to make these crystals respond to their thought patterns, they won't have gone through the rigorous training clansmen have in learning to wield aura effectively. Neither have they had the lifelong practice of long-time Strains in discovering how to control their powers. It would be very difficult for more than a handful of them to ever use artificial aura. We can fashion shortcuts, of course – along the same lines as how the culprit behind the app used quick methods to obtain remarkable results in those so predisposed – but just like we've seen in that case, the consequences of a shortcut would be grave for the well-being of the users."

"Okay. How do I activate this using my brainwaves?" Fushimi asked, frowning at the crystal in his left hand.

Dr Sakamoto laughed, his eyes crinkling. "Patience, Fushimi-san. It is like learning to wield clan aura all over again from the start. The idea is to focus on it until you sense a resonance between the crystal and your mind which is similar to that of clan aura. It took even the most skilled of our testers at least an hour to even feel the resonance, and several hours to produce aura. We tried it out for the first time yesterday, and none of them has been able to actually do anything with the aura yet…"

Dr Sakamoto broke off in surprise. At the same time, the elder clansman observing the scene smiled knowingly, for Fushimi's hand was suddenly suffused with the whitish, translucent glow that matched the hue of the crystal it held.

"How did you _do_ that?" Dr Ozaki asked in amazement. "No one else has…"

Having met and spoken with Fushimi twice before, and looked into his background, the elder clansman wasn't as surprised as the two doctors – the young man was a unique case and a peculiar talent.

"This crystal isn't even customised to you specifically, but you could resonate with it so fast?" Dr Sakamoto gasped.

"Perhaps because I've wielded three auras before, I've experienced the frequencies they have in common, and can more quickly apply them to resonating with the crystal," Fushimi stated, staring back at the two doctors and at the elder clansman with a look that was almost defiant. "Fickle, disloyal people like me should be good at this sort of stuff, wouldn't you think?"

His latter line was spoken with an ironic, brittle smirk.

The elder clansman could see how Fushimi had earned the reputation he'd acquired in some circles as a borderline manic-psychotic case who would sooner rather than later be locked away in a high-security mental hospital (probably after he'd slit about a dozen throats). But that might be the perception of the less discerning. Once again, to the elder clansman and the two seasoned doctors, he presented the image of a wary young animal baring its teeth just in case someone had it in their minds to snare him. A fascinating creature whose unpredictable moves could change the tides of an event. No wonder the Blue king prized him so.

"Fickle, disloyal people like you – who are discerning enough to so casually refer to themselves that way – are in our experience the least likely of all to exhibit any actual fickleness or disloyalty in their deeds," said the elder clansman, coming forward now, his lips curving into a smile below the base of his rabbit mask. "We could do with a talent like you in the Gold clan, Fushimi-san."

"A _fourth_ clan would be pushing it even for me, don't you think?" Fushimi remarked sardonically.

"If this project succeeds, all the allied clans will draw from the same aura. We will therefore eventually become branches of the same large clan. Even now, for all intents and purposes, your king is our king, for ours has departed. So perhaps Captain Munakata would not object to seconding you to the Timeless Palace for a spell?"

Fushimi stared at the elder clansman for a second before mustering his reply: "Thank you, I'm honoured, but no thanks. Sceptre 4's a pain a lot of the time, but it's a pain that works for me. And you won't want me in your ranks long-term – I _won't_ improve upon further acquaintance."

"Fushimi-san, you have already exceeded all our initial expectations," the elder clansman chuckled. "Please consider my proposal at your leisure. For now, we simply look forward to seeing how much further you will progress in this project."

"I'll do all I can to advance the project's aims, but I think you all know that my priority here is to utilise this research to catch the Strain behind the app," Fushimi said honestly. "Now, what can I actually _do_ with this aura?"

"Why don't you find out?" Dr Ozaki asked. She sounded curious to see what his next step would be. "You're already far ahead of the rest of our testers."

That was all the invitation he needed. From somewhere up his sleeve, Fushimi dropped two throwing knives into his right hand. The masked clansmen who had accompanied the elder member as bodyguards tensed, but the elder signalled them to stand down, watching with interest as Fushimi first drew the aura from the crystal into his body through his left hand. Then, using his own sense and instincts, he channelled it into his right arm, down to the fingers, until eventually, the throwing knives themselves were imbued with the aura.

Dr Sakamoto watched wide-eyed before hurrying over to the steel- and concrete-reinforced testing corner of the lab where he pressed a button to slide out a board on which was mounted a thick rectangle of granite.

Stepping away from the testing corner, Dr Sakamoto said: "Even when thrown by an ordinary human arm with the greatest force, a steel knife of that size wouldn't make it through this granite. But if it were one imbued with aura…"

Fushimi didn't need further telling. A smooth flick of his wrist sent the knives flying with deadly accuracy across the lab. Their blades sliced through the granite slab as if through cardboard, stopped only by their hilts.

"For comparison, a non aura-imbued blade…" Fushimi murmured as he dropped another knife into his hand, without aura this time.

As expected, it hit the granite but clattered to the floor of the testing corner.

The Gold clansmen looked at Fushimi, while Fushimi studied the crystal closely with a quirk tugging the corners of his mouth upwards a fraction, muttering: "I suppose that's a tolerable start – though the second blade was off by a millimetre."

…

"I think we should hear their whole story," Anna said. Her voice quivered slightly but her eyes were steady and her expression firm.

Yatogami Kuroh looked at her and the other kings. He was worried about all three of them now they had heard that the slate had used them to destroy itself. Shiro looked sad, Anna still had traces of tears on her lashes, and Munakata was always hard to read, but Kuroh thought his eyes had a grimness to them he had not seen before.

"Weismann-san, maybe we should take a break and continue this another day," Kusanagi suggested, obviously as concerned as Kuroh was.

"If Kushina-san is willing and able, let's finish it today," Munakata said, sounding so cold and businesslike that Kuroh flinched.

"Reisi, I have seen some of their story as I searched them for answers. It is not all bad," Anna said softly, gazing at the Blue king as if she knew he was on the verge of walking out on them with an icy declaration that the powers could go to hell for all he cared.

"The whole picture remains to be seen, and we may each judge it very differently by the end," Munakata stated flatly.

"Then let's go through with it," Shiro sighed, looking uncertain about how much more he really wanted to find out. "Anna-chan, please let us know what you can garner of their story, right from the beginning."

Anna nodded, giving Munakata one more searching look before turning her attention to the powers. With the rest, Kuroh waited in silence for several long minutes before Anna was ready to relate the tale as she understood it.

"They were from different sides, and were not allowed to love each other," she began. "The god was a leader among the gods and had many followers. The demon too had many followers among the immortals of the other realm. They wanted to be together, but they were caught and trapped while alone with each other. They were condemned by the other gods, and their followers were destroyed."

"Netted like Ares and Aphrodite, hauled naked and trapped in the very act of lovemaking by the furious Hephaestus before the gods of Olympus," Shiro murmured, a little absently.

Anna stared at Shiro and blushed, which made Kuroh turn pale – _oh dear, Kusanagi-san would be so mad with Shiro!_ Anna might not have originally known the Greek myth very well, but she could tell now, from reading the Silver king, what it was all about.

"Weismann-san, if you wouldn't mind _not_ adding to the adult imagery – Anna is a _child!_ " Kusanagi warned.

To Kuroh's relief, however, Anna kept her blushing under control and said calmly: "Izumo, I'm old enough to perceive every part of their story – don't worry. Weismann, the powers are telling me that yes, they were trapped while they were… _joined_ together… but they were caught by underhanded means, and were not like the myth you are thinking of, where a god of war and a goddess of love were ambushed by her husband on his bed."

"Yes, of course. I'm sorry, please carry on," Shiro said rather sheepishly.

"The gods threw them to the earth, destroyed their forms and sealed their powers into a great rock. They slept, and didn't know anything more until what they think must have been a long time later, when the last few of the gods who had condemned them woke them up and tried to revive them. There had been a terrible war in the immortal realm. The gods and demons were dying. But the two sealed into the stone – who had led armies in their time – could no longer be revived, and the remaining gods were too weak to unseal them. They could do nothing as among all the immortal beings who had ever known them, some gods were sealed away like they were by enemies, or they were crushed, or simply faded into nothing, to be replaced by new gods and demons."

"Many mythologies do tell of entire pantheons of gods being driven out or overcome by new gods," Shiro noted. "Whether we believe them to truly be accounts of immortals slain or defeated by other immortals, or glorified accounts of human civilisations driven to extinction by other human civilisations, this must be a tale as old as time."

"By the time the old gods and demons were destroyed, mortals had appeared on the earth and grown great in number," said Anna, continuing the story of the powers from the slate. "The huge rock in which the god and demon were sealed became known among mortals as a source of power and magic. Legends told of how this rock could make gods of men. But the fused consciousness of the god and the demon trapped inside had become an angry power. They were angered at the old gods who had done this to them, angry that they had been awakened, and angry with these new beings – these mortals – who were trying to take power out of the rock to make themselves into gods. Their anger leaked uncontrollably from the rock, and killed countless people who attempted to use it. So the strongest mortals with powers of sorcery and magic came together to seal the rock away beneath a magical… fortress..? Something like both a fortress and a mountain... some tremendous structure. Again, the god and the demon slept."

"Can you tell how long ago this was, Anna?" Shiro asked.

Anna shook her head. "Even they do not know," she replied.

"Where on the face of the earth did all this happen? And how large was the rock?" Kusanagi asked.

"The rock was far bigger than the Dresden Slate – at least twice as big," she answered. "I do not know which part of the earth these things took place at, but the powers say that at the time, the world was not yet divided into East and West, North and South."

"I'm sorry to be blunt, but that's ridiculous," Kusanagi complained. "I think we only had _dinosaurs_ at a time like that."

"Kusanagi-san," Shiro smiled, even as Awashima tapped the bar owner on the arm to soothe his impatience. "They were _trapped in a rock_. This is their account of things _as they knew them_. Please try to suspend your disbelief. Anna-chan, please carry on."

"Once more, they do not know how long they slept, but it must have been for many ages," she revealed. "They only know that a time came when there were earthquakes all over the world, which had now been divided into East and West. Endless wars were also being waged among mortals. One day, these mortal wars and a great earthquake coincided to destroy the fortress covering the rock, and woke the god and the demon again. The damage to the fortress damaged the rock too, which cracked and crumbled away at the edges. They believe that the people guarding the rock at that time were the Western descendants of the sorcerers who had sealed it beneath the fortress. These Western sorcerers managed to retrieve the core slab of the rock, and tried to repair the seals on it. But they could not seal it completely, because some of the secrets of their sorcery had gone with their brothers to the East. So the seals were incomplete."

"That means the Dresden Slate was what remained of an older, bigger rock which cracked and crumbled away long ago," Shiro murmured. "Do the powers say if they themselves were damaged by the breaking up of the rock?"

"Yes. They were damaged and changed, and they were more enraged than ever. Their powers went wild and harmed many people. Unlike the original, intact rock whose unleashed powers struck dead all who tried to use them, the damaged slab did not kill instantly. Instead, it filled helpless humans near it with more strength and abilities than their bodies and minds could bear. Many died horribly. Some very strong people were able to contain their new strength and were even able to pass it on to their followers, but they were cursed by the angry consciousness of the god and demon. The curse on these survivors was in the form of a great sword – like the swords the god and demon themselves had once wielded in battle – hanging over their heads. Whenever any of these people with their new powers grew their strength too greatly, the sword would fall on him, killing him and all around him."

"The Swords of Damocles began as a curse," Awashima breathed. "Of _course_ they did."

"To put a stop to such chaos, the sorcerers of the West called on their brothers in the East, and both sides came together to seal the slab. The damaged slab could no longer be sealed in the same way the intact rock had been, so the sorcerers of the East used the new skills they had developed in their lands to carve the surface of the slab with markings and inscriptions that would tame the powers inside by separating them into different qualities and parts. The sorcerers chose to use the number seven, which the powers say many humans considered magical."

"Can they tell us if these seven parts each belonged to either the god or the demon? Or were they fused throughout in all seven parts?" Shiro inquired.

Anna replied: "They say they were fused throughout. All of the seven… I think I can call them divine qualities… that the sorcerers used as dividers were qualities that belonged to both the god and the demon, not just one or the other. I want to explain to you what I am being told these seven qualities were, but I don't know if I will be able to use the right terms."

"Try to express what you can, Anna-chan. We'll help you the best we can."

"The first two are easy for me to understand: eternity and wisdom. The third is… it's like strength or power, but it's angry, like…"

"Wrath?" Munakata suggested.

"I suppose that is close. The fourth is something similar to the second one, wisdom, but I should say it is more like… perception. Or being able to see more than just what is obvious."

"Insight."

"Yes, I believe so. The fifth is growth or increase. Then the sixth has something to do with guidance, advice or teaching, and the seventh is… this is the hardest. The first word I can think of is fear, or terror, but it's not like the terror of something horrible, or a nightmare. It's a different kind of fear – like a very strong respect. What the powers seem to be telling me is that the sorcerers of the West believed that these seven parts their Eastern brothers had divided the slab into were the same as seven holy and divine qualities that people from the lands between East and West believed in."

"Ah," Shiro said, his eyes lighting up. "From the lands of the Middle East, Judaism believed that the seven aspects of the Spirit of God were: eternity, wisdom, might, understanding, knowledge, counsel, and awe. These beliefs and many others were passed down into the Christian church, which eventually became so dominant in the West."

"But this god and demon had nothing to do with Judaism or Christianity, evidently," Kusanagi pointed out.

"Of course they didn't," Shiro agreed. "But isn't it just like humans to seek similarities and parallels between things so that they can make unfamiliar things seem more familiar to themselves? Or classify things according to systems they already understand? And can't we ourselves now see parallels between these seven classifications and the different natures of the seven clans the Dresden Slate created?"

"All right, but what happened then to the slab of rock?" Kusanagi asked Anna.

"With the magical markings and new seals engraved on it by both the Eastern and Western sorcerers, the powers were divided and weakened. Instead of bursting loose and cursing numerous people all around them, each divided part could only make one cursed leader at a time with the sword threatening him if he exceeded his powers. The Western sorcerers called these leaders 'kings' rather than the 'gods' of old that people had once tried to become through the rock. So the sorcerers engraved the Latin word 'Rex' onto the slab with other symbols of East and West. Then they put the slab away. The weakened god and demon with their divided powers slept once more, and did not make any more 'kings' for a long time. When they next awoke, they learnt, over time, that the slate had been taken to different places before finally being buried, and the legend of the slate had become mixed up with the religious history of the Western church over many ages. The slate's origins were forgotten. In fact, the slate itself was forgotten for many hundreds of years, until it was dug up in Dresden, and some of its seals were opened. The tiny leaks of power created 'tiny kings' out of flies and mice, but no human kings… until the seals were opened a little further again by the new 'sorcerer' from the East – Kokujouji Daikaku – and then partly damaged when Dresden was bombed. When Weismann's mind synchronised with the powers during the bombing, he became in our modern era the First king, the Silver king, the king representing eternity."

"But all this time, the god and the demon inside the slate wanted to destroy the slate imprisoning them," Shiro prompted.

"Yes. They did not wish to be used any further. They wished to end things."

"Did they think they would be able to live again if they broke free of the slate? Was that what they wanted?"

"No, Weismann. They cannot live again in the forms they used to have, and they knew they could not return to life as they knew it. But their consciousness and heart are immortal, and they resented being used and controlled."

"So they made kings that they hoped would end the slate."

"Yes," Anna said sadly. "They did not always have full control of who was chosen as a king – no one did – not the Gold king who controlled the seals, and not the powers themselves. But the powers tried to synchronise with two kinds of kings: powerfully destructive ones whom they hoped would create so much damage that it would end the slate forever, and immensely wise ones whom they hoped would have the insight to see that the slate should be destroyed."

"Hence the sharp contrast between the kings who seemed like terrible choices, and the kings who seemed like ones appointed by the gods themselves," Shiro sighed.

They fell silent for a few moments as they took in this information, until the Blue king broke the silence with a blunt question.

"Was everything a lie?" Munakata asked, in so icy a voice that Kuroh did not dare to imagine what emotions he must be feeling. "All the wisdom and insight and knowledge the slate gave us – was it all a deceptive game played by the powers as they moved us around like chess pieces until we gave them the result they wanted?"

Anna took his question to the powers and came back with this answer: "Reisi, what I hear from them is that no lies were told. But they say that the truth is what you make of it, and the world you build is what you make it into."

"I see. And now that they are free of the slate, what did they return to you for that day, when you used them to save Yata Misaki's life?" Munakata asked.

"They were a part of us once, and although they do not wish to be used as they were used in the past, they say they will honour having been a part of us before, and they will answer us if the matter is critical, and we call upon them," Anna said.

"They will _honour_ us?" Munakata asked coldly. "These beings, who intentionally selected destructive kings, knowing their machinations would wipe out Kagutsu Genji and countless innocent lives? These beings, who drove Suoh Mikoto to his death? Who crowned an insane murderer as the Colourless king after Miwa Ichigen's passing? And chose a dead child as the Green king?"

"Their reply is that they did not make anything that was not there from the start," Anna said softly. "All that was within these kings – violence, evil and the capacity for boundless growth – was already in them. The slate only drew out what was inside them to its full extent. It was the same with the wisdom and insight and brilliance of other kings… like you. And all the choices the kings made were their own choices, not the slate's."

"No, Kushina-san. By making destructive kings, they turned what would have been no more than a matchstick into a bomb – ask Kagutsu Genji and Suoh Mikoto if that wasn't true. They took what would have been no more than mischief and turned it into murder – ask the fox and Hisui Nagare if that wasn't so."

"The powers themselves were used against their will for centuries, and weakened. In their divided state, if I can put it this way, they themselves were also not… not in their right minds?" Anna tried to put the response from the powers into words that would answer Munakata.

But the Blue king stood up and declared: "You may continue to let them honour you with their help if you so please. But I have heard enough for today to understand that these powers were enslaved against their will, used against their will, and manipulated whatever they could to their own ends from within the slate. For my part, unless I hear another reason why I should think any better of all that we became as a result of that tainted history, I choose to have nothing further to do with them. Good day to all of you."

Picking up his coat and striding out of the bar, Munakata did not stop even to let his lieutenant hurry after him, or so much as pause to speak to his own men in the car outside, who stared helplessly after him as he strode away from Homra alone.

* * *

 **Note:** To see Anonymous Fanatic's rendition of a dangerous-looking Fushimi all ready to have fun with his knives, see anonfanatic dot deviantart dot com slash art slash Becoming-Art-Chapter-10-625895538.


	11. Of Our Own Choosing

**Of Our Own Choosing**

"Misaki! What do you think you're doing?" Fushimi demanded in alarm, hurrying into the room to stop the other from struggling to his feet.

"H-hey, Saruhiko," Misaki stammered, panting slightly from the effort of trying to get himself out of bed.

His left hand was no longer in the sling, and the splints were gone from his right arm and leg, though they remained bandaged.

"Are you supposed to be out of those splints?"

"Yeah," Misaki gasped, perching on the edge of the mattress. "Everything's healing well. The doctor said it's okay to move around a bit as long as I don't tear my stitches or put pressure on my left hand–"

" _Tch._ I'm certain the doctor meant moving around with proper support and under professional supervision," Fushimi sighed. "Wouldn't you have been putting pressure on your hand by trying to pull yourself upright with it like you were about to?"

"No, I wouldn't have squeezed hard – I'd just have – uh… well, maybe a bit, but…"

Fushimi carefully lifted Misaki's hand and examined the fingertips. The skin and nails looked pink and healthy, so blood circulation was good. Swelling was minimal – no oedema. Unlike the right arm and leg, the left hand still wore a couple of light splints to prevent him from clenching his fist in his sleep and tearing the repaired tendons and nerves. Despite the splints, he showed that he was able to flex his fingers a fraction, prompting Fushimi to let out a breath of relief – if everything continued as it should, Misaki would almost certainly regain normal use of his hand in time.

"It's healing well, so don't try to do anything stupid like gripping your bedframe to haul yourself upright with it," Fushimi told him off again.

"Aaaaahh! Is that what Nii-chan was trying to do?!" Minoru yelped as he appeared in the doorway clutching two drink cans. "Saru! He's been driving me and Kaa-chan crazy all day, ever since the doctor removed the splints!"

"Where are the Homra guys? Why wasn't anyone in here with him?" Fushimi asked the boy.

"Nii-chan has been driving _all_ of us crazy," Minoru sighed. "First he sent Kamamoto-san back to his apartment to get his game console. Then he sent Bandou-san out to the shops to get a replacement battery for his PDA. After that, he fussed about wanting a takoyaki snack, and Kaa-chan went out to buy some for him. He also wanted lemonade and made me get it from the vending machine – I figured it would be safe for five minutes since your colleagues are watching the corridor. He's been _so_ antsy since the physiotherapist walked him around then made him get back into bed."

"I'm sore and aching all over, and I just want to _move_ to distract myself from the pain and the itching and the aches!" Misaki growled in frustration.

"You could have hurt yourself," Fushimi growled right back. "And you're a fool to send Kamamoto and Bandou out of the hospital – they're supposed to keep you safe along with the Sceptre 4 guys."

"No one'll attack me here."

"We don't know that for sure, Misaki. It's called taking precautions."

"What has that idiot son of mine done now?" Misaki's mother's voice came from just outside the room, shortly before she entered holding a box of what was evidently takoyaki.

"Ahhh! That smells so good!" Misaki exclaimed, trying to jump up and immediately being held down by Fushimi and Minoru. "I can feed myself now! Just put it here, please, Kaa-chan!"

"He's been like a spoilt child all day, Saruhiko-kun," his mother huffed, setting the box down on the overbed table and opening it for him. "In this kind of mood, he'll probably only listen to you and Kusanagi-san."

Although Misaki's right hand was unhurt, the bicep on that arm was still extremely sore, and he couldn't manage the disposable chopsticks the snack came with. His mother handed him the fork he'd eaten lunch with earlier, and he did better with this, using his right hand to slowly lift a takoyaki ball to his mouth. He brimmed with triumph when he succeeded, announcing: "Yesss! I'm back in business! I'll be on my skateboard in no time at all!"

At once, he was smacked on the back of the head by both his mother and Fushimi.

"Oww! What was that for?! Both of you at once too!" Misaki yelped, though it didn't stop him from popping his second takoyaki into his mouth right after his protest.

"Saruhiko-kun and I both hit you because you are an idiot to even be mentioning your skateboard before you can walk properly," his mother declared. "Don't you dare move any faster than at a crawl until everything is properly healed!"

Misaki sulked for a grand total of ten seconds, then brightened up again when he put his third takoyaki ball into his mouth. "This is soooo good after all that hospital food…"

"He's not listening," Minoru sighed, sounding as if _he_ was the older of the two brothers.

Their mother rolled her eyes and gave up on the idea of lecturing Misaki. She turned to Fushimi instead, saying: "Saruhiko-kun, the doctor said Misaki is healing surprisingly fast, and it's all right for him to move around for a few minutes every couple of hours. But he's not to use crutches or a frame, because those will put pressure on his hand and upper arm. His leg is very sore, but moving it slowly and carefully will be okay – nothing that could cause more tears to the quadricep. They've shown us how to stand on Misaki's right side and put one arm around his waist to support him as he walks short distances up and down the corridor. He might be less restless and difficult if we let him do that now? I know he's also been wanting to talk to you, so if you would be so good as to walk him a little…?"

Fushimi nodded, and Misaki's face lit up. It took a bit of initial manoeuvring, but eventually, Fushimi got his left arm securely round the other's torso – he felt toned and lightly muscled, as expected, but it came as a surprise to Fushimi how _small_ Misaki's body felt. The patient was allowed to rest his right arm lightly on Fushimi's upper back, but was warned not to exert any pressure that would hurt his bicep.

His mother and brother walked them out of the room, then left them alone so Misaki could get whatever he needed to get off his chest to Fushimi. The two moved slowly, in silence, until they were past the Sceptre 4 men from the general swordsmen's unit watching the corridor – Ishizuka and Jinnai from the current Squad 5. It took an agonisingly long time to reach the end of the passageway at this pace, but once they had turned the corner into a quieter stretch of corridor, Misaki blurted out: "I'm sorry about yesterday."

At exactly the same time, Fushimi admitted: "I shouldn't have yelled at you."

They stopped short after that clash of apologies, and stayed silent for an awkward second before Misaki mumbled: "I've just noticed – you're limping a bit."

"It's nothing."

"Did you get hurt on a mission?" he asked, indicating to Fushimi that he needed to stop walking – he was already breathing hard from the effort of covering a mere 20 metres.

"It's just the old wound from Gojou Sukuna," Fushimi replied dismissively, lowering Misaki gently into one of the plastic chairs along the corridor.

Misaki frowned as he sank into the seat. "It's been bothering you all this time?"

"Occasionally, when I'm on my feet for too many hours, or have to break into a run," Fushimi admitted with a shrug as he sat down beside Misaki.

"What? Aaagh, I dragged you all over Shinjuku and Shizume and across Nanakamado that day!"

"It's fine. It wasn't hurting. It's just a bit stiff at times."

"But you're limping now!"

"This is actually a good kind of limp, thanks to the bloody stretching exercise that evil doctor put me through in physiotherapy," Fushimi muttered, feeling irked all over again.

"You went for physio? Here?"

"No, at Nanakamado – I'm working with the Gold clan on a project for a while, and that annoying captain of mine arranged it so I wouldn't be able to get my job done if I didn't do the physio as well."

Misaki blinked at Fushimi, then burst into laughter: "Hahahahaha! He tricked you into it! _Hahahaha!_ "

"Yes, yes, it's all very funny," Fushimi clicked his tongue in irritation.

"Hehehehe! Ow… it hurts to laugh… _hehehehe!_ "

Misaki paused for breath, only to launch into another hyena-like chuckling fit, until he complained that his sides were aching. But at last, he wound down and gingerly wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his right wrist. He hiccupped once and was silent for a while, then asked Fushimi softly: "He really is your true king, isn't he?"

"Mm."

"While I've been a bad friend – I didn't even notice you were in discomfort," his voice dropped a little more.

"I was hiding it, idiot."

"No, I've been a bad friend for a long time – there's so much I didn't notice…" he said, colouring.

"It's not you – I told you, I hide… things."

"Still, I should have seen… look, don't blow your top and stomp away from me this time, okay, Saru? Just let me clear the air about this?"

"Okay," Fushimi murmured, already knowing what was coming.

"I-I'm sorry I never knew that M-Mikoto-san was such a big reason for things going wrong for you in Homra, and for things going wrong between you and me." Misaki shot him a worried glance as he spoke Mikoto-san's name, but was encouraged to see no strong reaction. "I should have known. I'm sorry that I didn't see, that I didn't l-look closely enough back then. You're right… you're totally right to have been mad at me for looking everywhere else and not looking hard enough at my best friend."

"Mm."

"So… please don't jump up and yell at me again, b-but I also want to say that if all it took was for me to mention you and Mikoto-san in the same breath to set you off like that, then you need to work your feelings out too – talk to me, or someone else if you don't want to talk to me. Just don't keep packing all that… all that resentment inside you, please, even if it is my fault."

"It isn't all your fault," Fushimi mumbled.

"I know I told you to keep telling me things until I understand them, but I've realised how hard certain things are to say at all. I-I'm just sorry that I didn't understand how you felt about _so many things_. But… you know… my mother came in early this morning and somehow just sensed that I was upset about you, that we'd had some kind of fight," Misaki said softly. "And she said to me: 'Misaki, I know you weren't always happy at home when you were younger, though we did our best never to give you reason not to be. But I was so happy for you when you made friends with Saruhiko-kun, because I saw that even though you couldn't choose the family you ended up being a part of through your parents' choices, Saruhiko-kun was the family you were able to choose, and he always will be.'"

"Misaki…" Fushimi's eyes widened as he looked back at his friend.

Misaki was starting to tear up again – from pure emotion this time, and he sniffled lightly before continuing: "I was telling the truth yesterday about you being the first guy I had a kind of crush on – you _really were_ , you know, when I was still young enough to like both guys and girls. Mikoto-san was my next, and you're _right_ – I looked at him in a way I never looked at you – but that was because I was older then, and anyway, Mikoto-san was the last man I was able to feel that way about, because soon after, I grew out of it – I realised it was girls I liked. I will always hero-worship Mikoto-san for being my _king_ , my _leader_ , my _protector_. But that's what it ended up as – not love, not… you know… not that sort of _want_."

He looked worriedly at Fushimi, clearly fearing that he was setting off another meltdown. But Fushimi looked back at him calmly and nodded in wordless permission for him to say what he needed to.

"I don't know what you and I will become in time. I really don't," Misaki went on, trying and failing to blink the tears off his rosy lashes. "You've been so many things to me, and I think I've been so many things to you too. But whatever we're becoming, I know for sure my mum was right – you are the first family I ever got to choose, and I more than happily chose you, and I think you more than happily chose me too as _your_ family. So whatever happens, whatever we come to feel about each other or whoever else is in our lives, just know that you are and always will be my best friend, my chosen family. If nothing else, you're the brother I got to choose for myself, and I'm the brother you got to choose for yourself, and that means _so much_ to me, you have _no idea_ …"

Misaki couldn't continue – he'd always been quite a crybaby, and he hadn't changed in that respect, ending his speech with a muffled sob. He leaned over and squished his face into Fushimi's shoulder. Fushimi let him stay like that for a minute or so until he was ready to pull back and wipe his face on his wrist again.

Then he lifted a finger and poked Misaki hard on the forehead.

"Oww!" Misaki wailed, turning instantly red in the face as a scowl broke through his watery gaze.

"There I was thinking that I was the one refusing to grow up all these years, and here you are still crying like we're back in middle school," Fushimi muttered.

"Saru, you jerk! I was pouring my fucking heart out to you!" Misaki yelled, scarlet-faced.

"I know," Fushimi said so quietly and seriously that it threw Misaki off.

"Y-y-you…"

"Thank you, Misaki," he whispered, meaning it from the bottom of his heart.

The frown melted off Misaki's brow like magic, and he looked at Fushimi out of huge eyes as he chewed his lower lip in a blend of confusion, irritation and anticipation. He was still a bit teary, but his gaze was determined, and that brilliant trademark Misaki smile was starting to blaze through.

The look in his eyes wasn't the one Fushimi had hoped for many years to see, but maybe he was growing up at last, because he was no longer looking at what wasn't there, but at what was. And finally, Fushimi could see that even if Misaki's gaze wasn't glowing with the kind of love he'd once wanted from him, it _was_ glowing with the genuine love of someone who had chosen him as _family_. For the first time, it was enough for him. No, not merely _enough_ , but exactly what he needed.

"Misaki."

"Hmm?"

"100 points."

"Huh?"

"100 points for now and forever."

"… _Ehh_?"

…

After Fushimi had walked Misaki back to his room, he'd spent time talking to him, his mother and Minoru, and even exchanged a few polite-enough words with Kamamoto and Bandou when they returned from the errands Misaki had sent them on.

He was getting up to go when a message came in from Akiyama that someone had come forward to offer possible information about the Strain behind the game app. Fushimi took his leave, hurried downstairs, and was stepping out of the lobby when a call came from Awashima.

"Fushimi-kun, are you still at Nanakamado?" she asked. She sounded tired.

"No, we've done all we can in the lab for today. I'll only need to go back tomorrow. I'm about to return to HQ – I just got Akiyama's message."

"Fushimi-kun, Akiyama and I can handle the questioning of the informant who's come forward."

"But –"

"Right now, there's something more important for you to do."

"What is it?"

"Please find Captain Munakata and make sure he's all right."

…

He drew deeply on his cigarette, inhaling the fragrance of the tobacco along with the warmth of the fire reducing the dried leaves to smoke, needing to feel the burn and the bitterness of it dragging sharply down into his lungs before rising back up and out of him.

The last time he had come here, he had killed Suoh Mikoto. But his second-last visit to this place had been his final bid to force Suoh to see sense. They'd lit up their cigarettes right here and talked that evening, to no avail. He'd lost his equilibrium and launched himself at the Red king, knocking him to the ice-cold ground below the shrine and pinning him down as if he could dominate him into seeing things his way. But Suoh hadn't even resisted or cared. He'd only smirked, and he'd _known_ when Munakata had come within a hair's breadth of kissing him in frustration and despair. They'd each obstinately stuck to their guns, then gone their separate ways.

At the time, he had perceived so clearly how everything _should_ be, how it _ought_ to be, and a good part of his helplessness had stemmed from how Suoh had absolutely refused – or been unable, in his grief and rage – to see that everything would work out if he would only fall in line with Munakata's vision and _obey_.

But Munakata now wondered if he hadn't been as much of a fool as Suoh all along. They'd both been nothing more than game pieces moved around by higher powers with their own tainted motives, hadn't they? Munakata's clarity of insight into the patterns of this world and what would give it perfect order had made him believe he was a king who could move people around like chess pieces purely because he _knew_ better and could _see_ better. Manipulating others had been for the higher cause of making everything _right_.

He no longer had the certainty that his vision for what this world ought to be was true. He could no longer say that it wasn't as tainted as the powers which had exponentially expanded and increased his natural perceptiveness.

What vision was it, then, that Kusuhara Takeru had died for? Munakata had seen that a person like him would come to an early end if he remained in the Blue clan. So at first, he had tried to spare him by making it hard for him to stay. But Kusuhara's will had driven him to fight with immense determination to remain, and Munakata had eventually decided to treat that will as a force that would make him a wild card out of the king's control – he'd just let things be, and watched to see what unexpected events would unfold with this unpredictable factor left free to follow his own choices.

He should have ignored that will. He should have gone against his vision of Sceptre 4 in a state of completeness to save Kusuhara's life. The vision was flawed from the start of his kingship, was it not? He had not been a king; he had been a pawn manipulating other pawns on behalf of something bigger that been using him.

Hadn't he?

Yet…

"The choices we make are ultimately our own, you know. We mortals like to imagine that we do this or that because it's _meant to be_ , because the universe has _made it that way_ , but still, we do choose – sometimes pretty stupidly, that's for sure – but we _do_ make those choices."

The voice which spoke those words was as lazy as Suoh's, as irreverent, and had as much of an underlying tone of resignation as the late Red king's, especially in this place, where such fateful events had occurred. At the same time, it was nothing like Suoh's in many respects – a distinct sharpness belied the apparent resignation, a certain quality of defiance was at its core, and a peculiar current of hopefulness ran beneath the superficial pessimism… Munakata would know that voice anywhere.

He turned around, already knowing who he would see – Fushimi, walking towards him out of the forested area surrounding the shrine. He didn't expect, however, that his third in command wouldn't be in uniform. Munakata himself was in civilian wear because of his visit to Homra that morning, but Fushimi too was now out of his work clothes, wearing jeans and a parka, with his sabre wrapped in what looked like another jacket – he had most probably changed his attire to avoid attracting undue notice while entering the grounds of Ashinaka High School.

Fushimi had hacked the school's security system more than a year ago, during that unforgettable Christmas season following Totsuka Tatara's murder. For reasons of convenience for the Blue clan's work, he had never stolen back into the system to rescind either his own or Munakata's authorisation to enter the academy island – not even when the island officially became the territory of the Silver king. It had certainly come in useful today for both of them, letting Munakata stew in peace for a good spell, then letting Fushimi track him down (even though he'd turned off the GPS tracker of his PDA), just as he was falling into the old trap of withdrawing deep inside himself because he felt he had somehow failed.

"You'd think someone as brilliant and insightful as you would _choose_ not to inhale those things that you know will probably kill you in a nasty way eventually," Fushimi remarked. "Besides, they stink. Always hated the smell of them in that bar."

Munakata huffed, dropped the cigarette to the ground and snuffed it out under the sole of his boot.

"Better, Fushimi-kun?"

"Mm-hmm. So. I hear you threw a tantrum and flounced out of Homra this morning."

"Oh? Is that what you were told?" Munakata asked, feeling the spark of amusement for the first time in what felt like a very long while.

"No. It was described in far more serious and heartbreaking terms, but that's sure what it sounded like to me."

"Ah," Munakata felt himself smiling in spite of his bitter mood.

"Shouldn't you leave tantrum-throwing and stomping out to the likes of me?"

"Well, we mustn't leave everything to you, Fushimi-kun. I must have decided that it was time I took those burdens upon my own shoulders."

"Yeah, losing your cool is a real tough job," Fushimi drawled, coming to a stop in front of him on the path leading up to the shrine.

"It can upset one's equilibrium in a most unfortunate way, especially when one does in fact have a valid reason for being angry," Munakata said, neutralising Fushimi's irony.

But the other took the discussion straight by stating directly: "From what I hear, the ones you're angry with might also have had their own reasons for being upset with life, the universe and everything."

"Which makes it all right?"

"No, but it does make them and us all beings of intelligence who've been doing what we can with what we've been dealt. I may not be either a god or a demon, and I may not be wise to the workings of the universe like a king is, but I think I can boldly answer the question Lieutenant Awashima said you asked at the bar this morning: It wasn't and isn't all a lie, Captain."

"How would you know that?" Munakata asked curiously.

"Because I've _seen_ pointless malice. I've lived with it more than I ever wanted to. From the moment I was born into this world I was forced to grow up suffocated by that utterly purposeless genius that was so much more evil than wickedness with a cause," Fushimi said, a tremor entering his voice before he steadied it and went on firmly. "That's what someone like _you_ would have turned out to be if you'd lived a lie controlled by powers with nothing but a single narrow purpose. Instead, you've lived a bloody meaningful life moulded by your choices and will. I don't give a shit about the idea that we're all fatefully controlled by forces far beyond us – in my book, we still live and die according to our will and our decisions even if there are unseen forces shaping us. I've known firsthand what it's like when some evil jerk with boundless potential makes choices that shape his entire life into nothing but a pointless series of actions to make his own child's existence a living hell. But conversely, I've also seen what it's like when a genius makes choices that aim to bring good to others, to make hard sacrifices that ultimately produce order and peace and save lives. I've seen the difference, and I sure as hell know _your_ life has not been a lie."

"You don't know the depths of the harsh decisions I've made to shape the world to what I perceived it should be, based on insights that I can no longer be certain did not come from very flawed powers," Munakata countered.

"What did you see when you became the Blue king?" was Fushimi's unexpected question as a follow-up.

"Everything that the Blue clan was and should be. Everything. Even down to how the files should be organised and what our uniforms should look like. Every detail."

"Wow. Those were some _kinky_ powers giving you those insights if they were the ones showing you how fucking high the slit on Lieutenant Awashima's coat should be and how damned much her hotpants ought to expose," Fushimi drawled. "I think you already know this, but seriously, there's no way the knowledge you received would go all the way down to the details of how stuff should be filed and how our uniforms ought to look if it came from powers intent only on selfishly attaining a single aim. I think there was good and bad, wisdom and stupidity, truth and lies, two sides of everything mixed up in the powers that the slate channelled. I'll wager you got most of the good stuff, Captain."

"Oh?"

"Yup."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because your cause is pure."

"Fushimi-kun?"

"That whole 'advancing with sword in hand' recitation's always seemed rather pretentious to me, but it's so true to your nature. Your cause is and always has been pure, even if it's been harsh at times in the sacrifices it's had to make. Your terrifying insight _is_ meant for great things, and those powers have been trying to tell you that through Anna – you've lived according to your choices, and those choices have been bloody annoyingly _pure_."

"Do you know that for a certainty?"

"I do."

"Why?"

"Because you are my _king_."

For once, Munakata was speechless.

Fushimi was turning pink over his cheekbones, and looking slightly embarrassed, but he continued: "You chose me as your clansman, but I chose you as my king too. I didn't say or do this even during my installation into the Blue clan, and before this, I'd have sworn that I'd never do it even to my dying day for _anyone_. But then I barely knew you at the installation, so why should I have trusted you implicitly then? However, I know you a whole lot better now, and I can and will openly declare here and now that you are my true king, and I couldn't have sworn allegiance to anyone better than you, and I know with every instinct honed in me through my shitty upbringing that you have the bloody purity of a snowflake that could make hell freeze over while keeping its edges as sharp as a katana's blade."

He ended his declaration and shoved his hands into his pockets, turning his face away a shade to hide the deepening colour in his cheeks.

"That… has to be the most moving and vulgar vow of allegiance I have ever received," Munakata stated after a pause.

"Well, it's the best you're getting from me, so take it or leave it," Fushimi shrugged.

"You would acknowledge me as your true king even though the entire basis of my being made a king may not have been part of the universe's vast eternal plan for a great purpose, but possibly nothing more than the unwilling powers forced from two beings of uncertain origin trying to free themselves?" Munakata asked, his tone of voice lightening despite the sobriety of his words.

"And the entire basis of my emerging into existence in this world was the bad joke that was the coming together of two sick people who should never have been allowed to reproduce. But it's what you make of yourself that counts, isn't it?"

"You are not and never will be contaminated by the cruelty of your parents," Munakata stated firmly, his voice tightening at the thought of everything Fushimi had suffered as a defenceless child.

"So your nature as a king has not and never will be tainted by the origins of what gave you power. Also, I seem to remember that someone a hell of a lot wiser than me once told me that if you dislike the way the world is, then you should use your own hands to reconstruct its order, principle and framework. If you don't like how the world looks to you from this new perspective, change it – rework what you can, or shift your perspective. Frankly, I don't believe it's all bad, these powers from the slate, and I think you can coexist with them once you see how to do so on your own terms. But for now, while you're deciding whether you want to be friends or not, you can wield human-made powers instead."

"Is that so?"

"I got permission to take this out of the lab to practise with, though your Rabbit friend will probably skin me if I lose the damned thing," Fushimi muttered, drawing his left hand out of his jacket pocket along with the white crystal, which he held out, palm up, to Munakata. "I can resonate with it the way I did when calling on any of my auras, and since you have always had the vast capacity of everything that enabled you to be a king, I'll bet you can resonate with it a hundred times better than me. Hold it."

Fushimi probably expected Munakata to take the crystal from him, but Munakata put his hand over both it and Fushimi's palm, capturing the younger man's hand with his thumb and last three fingers, while resting his index finger on his wrist, where he could feel Fushimi's pulse leap.

Fushimi activated the artificial aura, bathing his left hand and Munakata's right in the translucent white glow.

"Why aren't you using it yourself?" Fushimi asked, the hue on his cheeks deepening as he stared at Munakata's hand holding his in place.

"I'm quite happy with how this feels right now," Munakata said with a smile, firmly pulling Fushimi towards him.

Fushimi extended the aura into Munakata's arm even as the captain's other hand came to rest on his waist, drawing him closer. Munakata pressed his cheek against Fushimi's hair, and Fushimi, catlike, nudged at his king's neck above the collar with his nose.

Absorbed in each other's closeness and scent, they might have missed the presence of the intruder had it not been for the heightened senses the artificial aura imparted to Fushimi, and in turn to Munakata. They alerted Fushimi to a change in their surroundings – someone was there with _intent_ – and his extending of the aura into Munakata's arm made the king likewise aware of the alteration in the flow of energy in the forest surrounding them.

"It seems that one or both of us may have been followed…" Fushimi growled as his and Munakata's sharpened senses echoed and amplified each other's in less time than you could measure. In a fraction of a split second, Fushimi unsheathed his sabre with one hand, imbued it with aura, and slashed away the bullet fired towards Munakata's head. At precisely the same moment, Munakata, still holding his clansman's hand with the crystal in it, reached under Fushimi's jacket with his other arm, drew one of his throwing knives out of its harness, and instinctively infused it with the artificial aura before hurling it in the direction the gunshot had come from.

The sharp thud of the blade finding its target was followed by a cry of pain from the forest, and the sound of a body crashing into the underbrush.

Moving as one, Munakata and Fushimi raced towards the would-be killer who was now their prey.

* * *

 **Note:** I love the expressions on Munakata's and Fushimi's faces, and their body language, in this drawing by Anonymous Fanatic for this chapter - it's at anonfanatic dot deviantart dot com slash art slash Becoming-Art-Chapter-11-627408695.


	12. Revelations

**Revelations**

Fushimi-san had communicated three key details in his phone call: Captain Munakata was fine; however, someone had just tried to kill him; and he, the captain and the wounded assailant were at the shrine on the academy island, from where they needed immediate transport back to the city centre.

Fushimi-san had also issued three clear orders over the phone: whoever picked them up was to bring medics along, because the gunman was seriously injured; they were to bring crime-scene equipment for the bagging of weapons; and they were to drive the fully equipped ops van, because there might not be time to process the gunman at HQ before taking him to a hospital.

Lieutenant Awashima answered Fushimi-san's call, but it was Hidaka and Gotou whom she dispatched to carry out the instructions. Which was how Hidaka found himself and two Sceptre 4 medics tearing through the forest surrounding Ashinaka High in the late afternoon, following his GPS navigator's directions towards the blue blip showing Fushimi-san's location. Gotou stayed behind with the van and its high-security systems.

With only a messenger-style carrier holding plastic sheets and zip-up bags as extra equipment, Hidaka easily outpaced the medics encumbered by the stretcher and bulkier first-aid supplies. He was thus the first to spot, through the trees, the person who had evidently fired at the captain. The man was secured at the wrists and ankles by duct tape, propped up against a low stone wall on the path leading to the shrine, his body slumped at an awkward angle to accommodate the mess that was his right shoulder.

At the same time Hidaka noted those details, he also saw the captain and Fushimi-san on the stone stairs above and behind the incapacitated gunman. The first thing he registered about them was that they both appeared unharmed. The second – which officially was unimportant information, but which was personally most fascinating to him – was that Fushimi-san was seated a few steps up from the path while Captain Munakata crouched beside him with one hand on Fushimi-san's right hip and another on his thigh.

As Hidaka continued running towards them, the trees blocked his view momentarily. When he next saw them clearly, they were on their feet and no longer in contact with each other.

Later, Hidaka would learn that Fushimi-san had just gone through his first physiotherapy session for the old wound on his thigh, and the captain had been worried that their counterattack on the gunman might have undone what good the treatment had begun. But Hidaka was certain that his immediate impression of the scene as intimate had not been wrong either – the look on the captain's face had been unusually affectionate; and there had been something _bashful_ about how Fushimi-san's face was angled away from the captain in a way that made Hidaka think: _Everyone always says Fushimi-san is the captain's favourite, but no one in their right minds would have said the reverse was true... until now._

Okay, so Hidaka couldn't deny he was something of a Fushimi Saruhiko fanboy. He'd been intrigued from the moment Fushimi-san had become their third in command while still a teenager, and Hidaka had been the most keen of the Special Squad members to draw him out and engage him in their bonding activities. Even that upsetting exchange more than a year ago, when Fushimi-san had uttered what seemed to be unfeeling remarks about Kusuhara Takeru, had not been enough to make Hidaka feel negatively towards him for more than a day.

So, yeah, maybe his perception _was_ coloured by those Fushimi-tinted glasses Gotou and Enomoto accused him of wearing around their tyrannical knife-throwing superior. But tinted or not – and weighing in the lesson he'd learnt at the hospital when Kamo had yelled at him – Hidaka was _still_ sure he'd witnessed a private moment between Fushimi-san and the captain.

His fanboy side deflated at the thought that he would now never be the first person in Sceptre 4 to make a special personal connection with Fushimi-san. But as a Blue clansman, if he had to be defeated by anyone in this race, then he was glad it was their king who'd beaten him.

Naturally, Fuse would later cynically insist that Hidaka had never been in the running to begin with. But he didn't give a damn about that now as he hailed his captain and third in command, sprinted up to them with the medics close behind, and cheerfully suffered a click of the tongue from Fushimi-san, who demanded to know why he was grinning at him like that, yet didn't seem interested in hearing the answer.

"Did you bring the crime-scene equipment?" Fushimi asked.

"Yes, Fushimi-san," Hidaka replied brightly.

"Bag that rifle," Fushimi ordered, pointing to a weapon on the ground several feet away from them, wrapped in a jacket to keep any fingerprints on it as intact as possible.

It was small for a rifle – a stealth recon scout, Hidaka noted, barely more than two feet long, and possible to stash in a bag like the ones sportsmen might tote. Indeed, sitting beside the rifle was an innocuous black nylon carrier which proved to hold rounds of ammunition, two handguns, a scope and a mount, among other items. Putting everything into that anonymous bag and dressing in the maintenance crew-like dark blue overalls he still wore was probably how the gunman had slipped onto the island without attracting notice from the school's robot crew and human staff. Also, the spring break was on, so very few students were around.

Hidaka wrapped the rifle – obviously smuggled goods – in one of the plastic sheets he had brought, then bagged it in a large zippered envelope. As the medics began to strap the gunman onto the stretcher, Hidaka returned to the captain's and Fushimi's side and asked quietly: "Who is he?"

"No idea. He hasn't said a word other than to spew vulgarities at us. That's why I asked for the ops van."

"His shoulder's a real mess – did you turn his own weapon on him?"

"No," Fushimi said shortly.

"We used one of Fushimi-kun's throwing knives," the captain explained much more agreeably.

"Eh? He had to be at quite a distance, considering the range of that weapon. How did one of Fushimi-san's throwing knives reach that far and do _that_ much damage?" Hidaka blanched, glancing again at the gunman. "It looks like the bones around the joint have been pretty much shattered. And even after getting him with the knife, how did you reach him before he fired his next shot?"

"Artificial aura," Fushimi muttered. "The project I briefed the team about last month, remember?"

"No kidding!" Hidaka gasped. "That's even more speed and power than we saw from you when we had clan aura, Fushimi-san."

"I wasn't the one who threw the knife," Fushimi muttered even more grumpily this time. "It was the captain."

"Sir?" Hidaka went wide-eyed. " _You_ used one of _Fushimi-san's_ hidden weapons?"

"Oh yes," the captain replied quite cheerfully. "I know exactly where he hides every one of them under his clothes."

Hidaka, suddenly seized by the mental image of Captain Munakata groping Fushimi-san under his clothing, turned red and started grinning again, resulting in another irritated tongue click and telling-off from his immediate superior – who now looked just as annoyed with the captain as with Hidaka.

For the time being, he had to rein in his private thoughts as they swung into action to get the gunman back to the van and processed quickly. The medics saw to what they could of the man's wound, Gotou recorded his fingerprints and snapped a picture of his face, and Hidaka took the data and ran it through the computer system in the van to check it against the national database Sceptre 4 shared with the police.

As Gotou drove towards the Nanakamado hospital, and the medics treated the man on the floor of the van, Hidaka waited for a match on the database. It didn't take long to return a result – and he wasn't surprised by the details, because the gunman's close-lipped, stoic behaviour in spite of the great pain he had to be in had already tipped them off that this was a seasoned professional criminal.

True enough, 42-year-old Oda Rokuro was described as having been wanted by the police for a long time. He was not a Strain, but a normal human who was a known assassin for hire. He had been jailed twice in his youth for violent gang-related activities, progressed to taking payment for killing targets on behalf of clients but never caught because he stayed on the move and changed identities, and had recently been named as responsible for a series of execution-style gangland killings in Saitama prefecture.

Hidaka showed the captain and Fushimi-san what had come up on the database, and they all looked at one another, but said nothing – it was always better not to say much in front of people they had taken into custody so the criminals wouldn't have information to use against them later. But words weren't needed, anyway, because they knew what they were thinking: hardened professional killers like this almost never talked. They wouldn't volunteer useful confessions that would incriminate themselves further, or lead the authorities to their clients.

Trying to question this man would very likely be a complete waste of their time.

"Notify our police liaison," was the decision Captain Munakata arrived at swiftly.

Hidaka understood. Since the gunman was not a Strain or any other superpowered criminal, there was no need for Sceptre 4 to process him further. They would turn him over to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and let them handle his official arrest, charges and communication with the Saitama police. Even though they had a strong instinct that this assassin had been hired by the person behind the telekinesis-training app, there was little chance the man would admit who his client was. In fact, there was a high probability that he didn't _know_ who his client was.

They rendezvoused with the police officers at the Nanakamado hospital and handed the gunman over along with the weapons and other items they had retrieved at the scene. If any information came from their questioning of him, it would be a bonus; but in the meantime, they would focus on the source who was more likely to provide something they could go on – the woman who had contacted Sceptre 4 to say she might know the person behind the app.

…

The woman – the girl, actually, as she was only 19 – was Nitta Yumi, an acquaintance of Doumyouji's. Doumyouji, with the rest of Sceptre 4, had started asking contacts yesterday for information regarding anyone who had been unusually upset after the subsiding of the superhuman powers that had briefly broken out among the general population in January. The few responses that came in hadn't amounted to anything after some quick investigation, until Doumyouji received the call from the girl he called "Yumi-chan".

Awashima had no reason to doubt Nitta-san's sincerity in wanting to help. She was a Strain who had been registered with Sceptre 4 since she was five years old, when the kingless Blue clan had been under the Gold clan's governance. She was now a university student at Todai, a pretty girl, all huge brown eyes and bright smile, with a slender figure, and was "really harmless", as Doumyouji insisted.

Nitta's powers had been documented as a mild ability to raise the temperature of things she touched, but they had always been weak enough to prevent her from causing much damage even as an ignorant child – she had never been able to set anything other than the driest kindling on fire with her bare hands, and her parents had kept all flammables away from her until she was old enough to know better. No matter how hard she tried, it seemed she had only ever been able to warm most substances to a limited degree.

"Ever since January, my powers have grown even weaker," she lamented as she sat before them in Interview Room 3 within Sceptre 4's main wing. "I can barely get a cup of water hot enough to make tea any more. And January was also when Mirai-chan killed herself, and Nagato-kun couldn't accept it."

Doumyouji had gone to see Nitta on campus today to find out more about her suspicions regarding this Nagato Hideyoshi she knew, and persuade her to give Sceptre 4 her formal account. She had needed convincing as she wasn't sure if she had got it wrong. But she trusted Doumyouji, she said, and was worried about what Nagato-kun had said to her when she had run into him…

"Nitta-san, perhaps you could begin with how you got to know Yamakawa Mirai?" Awashima prompted the girl now that they had finally persuaded her to come to Sceptre 4 headquarters after her project work was done for the day – and fortunately, the captain and Fushimi had returned in time to meet her. "Doumyouji-kun has given us a summary of what you told him, but he also says the whole picture may be clearer if you would please start with your history with Yamakawa-san?"

Privately, Awashima thought it was a tiny miracle that the scatterbrained Doumyouji had been able to suggest what would make Nitta-san's account most comprehensible to people hearing it for the first time. Maybe Fushimi's regular scoldings about his unreadable reports were drilling the message of clarity through Doumyouji's skull at last. Whatever it was, Awashima was thankful for little mercies.

"Yes, of course," Nitta agreed. "I guess I do have to begin at the beginning. The background is that when I was growing up in Chiba prefecture, my parents used the Internet to find other families whose children might be 'different', like me, so they could form a support group. Doumyouji-kun tells me you officially call us Strains, but you know, we don't like to be labelled that way – we're just people with different abilities. Anyway, that was how I met Mirai-chan. I was seven years old at the time. Mirai-chan was nine. We had regular gatherings with several families who lived in the same area as us."

"Nitta-san, do you know if all these children you met were registered with the Civil Registry Department of the Tokyo Legal Affairs Bureau?" Munakata asked, giving the administrative name most registered Strains would know Sceptre 4 by.

"Back then, I was too young to know that _I_ was registered with you! But as I grew older, I learnt that, no, not all these kids I met were known to the bureau. My parents said they had me registered after my kindergarten teachers notified the authorities that a strange child in one of their classes was always heating the cold fruit juices they served at break time into undrinkable hot concoctions," Nitta giggled. "However, not everyone in our support group trusted the authorities. Some were afraid to let their children's powers be revealed to outsiders. They home-schooled them, or bribed teachers to turn a blind eye. Mirai-chan's parents probably had a good reason to be terrified that their daughter would be taken away from them and locked up in an institution, because even among us children with strange abilities, Mirai was a very extreme case."

Awashima said nothing to counter Nitta's remark on those parents' perceptions about the authorities, because Anna had suffered such a fate as a small child before the Gold clan had purged itself of its rogue members.

"In what way was she an extreme case?" Munakata asked.

"Mirai-chan's powers gave her excessively heightened senses so everything felt like torture to her – the smallest noises, the faintest smells, even light breezes… everything was amplified. When we were older, she once described to me how she could hear every whisper, even the rustling of cloth, for a mile around, all day and night. This often left her huddled in a corner babbling hysterically to herself for hours on end. The only way she could function was to use another aspect of her powers to shut everything out. When she was about 11 and old enough to express herself better, she explained to me that it was like muting everything – light, noise, scent, taste, her skin receptors – the whole world, really."

"How often could she mute her senses so that stimuli wouldn't be so torturous to her?" Awashima asked.

"That was the problem. That side of her powers was always weak, and never grew stronger although she tried to train them up. She could only shut out things for short periods of time before she grew exhausted. But once she was too drained to continue muting them, every bit of stimuli would assail her senses again – it drove her crazy. It wore her down and wore her out, and she was on the brink of losing her mind. Then she met Nagato-kun."

"Nagato Hideyoshi – the person you believe is behind the app," Awashima noted.

"Yes," Nitta nodded. "His parents joined our group when Mirai-chan was 12. He was the same age as her. They bonded _immediately_. His powers let him hide in all kinds of ways – he could manipulate others' perceptions so that if he didn't want us to notice him, it would be as if he was invisible. Of course he wasn't _really_ invisible or anything – he just made it so we couldn't see or hear or sense him. He absolutely loved computers, and although most of our parents tried to stop us from viewing certain things online, Nagato-kun could get on any computer and make it seem as if he'd never touched it – as in, there was never any trace that he'd used it at all or got around the parental controls. It was a really useful trick. Oh – but that's not the main point – the main point is that his powers were able to combine beautifully with Mirai-chan's, and for the first time, she could mute her senses for really long periods – like for a whole day, as long as she was with him."

"How did Nagato Hideyoshi achieve that for Yamakawa Mirai?" Awashima asked.

"He was somehow able to merge his powers of concealment with her muting powers to hide himself and Mirai-chan in their own little world," Nitta explained. "He had much stronger powers and much greater stamina than she did, and he could strengthen and sustain her muting abilities. Whenever he was with her, they could escape into their own small world, and she would be calm and able to talk and laugh like a normal, happy person. It was sweet. They didn't always visually conceal themselves – a lot of the time, we could see them perfectly and even talk to them through the barrier she had put up with Nagato-kun, as long as they kept it… erm… porous, I guess? He could vary the density of the barrier."

"Were their parents supportive of their bond?"

"Oh, yes! Mirai-chan's parents of course were very grateful. Nagato-kun's parents at first feared that Mirai-chan might hold him back in life since she needed him near her constantly, but Nagato-kun _adored_ Mirai-chan. She made him happy. He just… fell in love with her at first sight – honestly – it's not an exaggeration. So Mirai-chan's parents moved in next door to Nagato-kun's parents, and the two kids practically lived in each other's homes – we all lived in the same neighbourhood, so I saw them often. Mirai-chan improved so much over the years that she was able to tolerate several hours a day apart from Nagato-kun – the buffer of peace she built up while shut away in their own world made it easier for her to endure the assault of stimuli for longer stretches of time. That made it possible for Nagato-kun to attend high school. He would meet her at lunch breaks, to give her some respite. And he loved her more than ever – I can't tell you _how much_ he loved her."

"Things went on in this way until January this year?" Awashima asked.

"Not exactly. Some things happened in between. A few years ago, we – those of us who'd grown up together and were still close, I mean – we all got into Jungle. We were intrigued by Jungle's games and challenges, and what was best was that achieving certain levels gave us additional power. The green aura helped most of us make more of our natural powers. It was especially useful for Nagato-kun and Mirai-chan. You see, Nagato-kun discovered a new ability to draw power from Jungle without even having to play the games or do the challenges. And the power of concealment he already had meant he could freely sneak around inside Jungle's server. You know all the rumours that were going around at the time – that Jungle was run by a powerful and all-knowing Green _king_? Those rumours got us worried for Nagato-kun – we were scared he'd be caught by this king. Because we knew other computer-crazy people who'd tried to hack Jungle too, and every one of them was found out, shut out, banned. Some even _disappeared_. But Nagato-kun was never caught. His concealment powers were really on a totally different level."

"He was able to draw powers from Jungle regularly?"

"Definitely," Nitta nodded. "He used the green aura to amplify his powers, then he created a programme that would enable Mirai-chan to receive the aura from Jungle too without having to do the challenges – how could she do those challenges when she was so withdrawn from most of society except her family and us old friends? He loaded the programme onto her devices, and this allowed her to get power from the Jungle server by playing non-interactive games. It increased her own muting powers and allowed her to be more independent of Nagato-kun. He could even go to university without worrying about leaving her alone the whole day. This was round about the time I began to have much less contact with them – Nagato-kun was busy with his university studies, I was starting my final year of high school, and Mirai-chan was just absorbed in her own world that Nagato-kun had made possible for her."

"So you didn't know how they were doing during this time?"

"I didn't meet them at all during my last year of high school, though we texted and e-mailed occasionally. I contacted them even less when I myself started going to university here in central Tokyo. Nagato-kun was still attending Chiba University, and I heard that he and Mirai-chan shared an apartment he rented near his campus. Then I stopped using Jungle – it seemed to be getting more and more dangerous and irresponsible, and after I got to know Doumyouji-kun at a social event, he warned me not to do the Jungle challenges at all, because a lot of people had got hurt through them, he said. But my texts and e-mails to Nagato-kun and Mirai-chan about Jungle's dangers were ignored – they never replied. I completely lost contact with them."

"Then in January…" Awashima prompted.

"Yes – those strange incidents that seemed to have something to do with Jungle – where our kinds of powers broke out in ordinary people everywhere… they caused such panic, but I got a happy text from Mirai-chan out of the blue after months of silence, saying that her muting powers were now so strong that she could function normally. Then suddenly, within a month, the strange incidents died down abruptly, Jungle disappeared completely, and many of the people I knew who had inborn powers like me found their powers reduced. I was worried about Mirai-chan, but she didn't pick up my calls or answer my messages. Right at the end of January, Nagato-kun suddenly appeared on my apartment doorstep looking like he had been through hell. He asked if I'd seen Mirai-chan. He couldn't find her, he said. She'd lost all her muting powers completely, he told me, but unfortunately, she hadn't lost any of her excessive sensitivity to stimuli. The Jungle server no longer existed, and the programme he'd made for her wouldn't work any more. He said he himself still had all his powers and could help her create their own little bubble like they had in the past, but she had broken down and cried one day, saying this would tie him down again and hold him back just as he was getting ahead. He assured her that he was happy to do anything for her, and she said okay and went to sleep that night. But when he left her for a few hours the next day to settle some matters at his university, she vanished from their apartment. I hadn't seen her; none of our old friends had seen her; neither had her parents and Nagato-kun's parents. We looked everywhere, but two days later, I saw a report in the newspapers that a young woman had died after jumping off an office tower in Saitama. It was Mirai-chan."

"I'm so sorry to hear that, Nitta-san," Awashima said. "Did Nagato-san contact you after that?"

"No. He disappeared too. No one could contact him. He didn't even go to Mirai-chan's funeral."

"Why do you think he is the person who released the app Doumyouji told you about?" Munakata asked.

"Because I ran into him last week," Nitta revealed. "I saw him in Shinjuku, across the street. He looked terrible. Almost _crazed_. Knowing his abilities to hide himself, I made sure not to call out to him. I just quietly sneaked up behind him then darted in front of him so he was forced to stop. Once he saw me right in front of him, he didn't try to run away from me or hide. He stopped to talk for a while there on the street. He ranted about how he'd learnt that the source of our powers had been destroyed by various organisations, which was why many of us had reduced abilities now, and Mirai-chan had lost the only abilities that had given her peace. He ranted also about how he had found many interesting things on Jungle's server before it was destroyed, and how he was now using these things to hurt the organisations that had brought about the end of Mirai-chan's muting powers as well as the end of the Jungle aura she had been able to borrow. He spoke bitterly about so many things – about how ordinary humans had created a horrible, noisy world that had made Mirai-chan's life a misery. He insisted that ordinary humans had rejected her and made it impossible for her to be part of normal society, so he was now using tools to make them go mad and hurt others. He ranted again about the guilty organisations, saying that instead of helping people like Mirai-chan, they had condemned her to hell. He said he would use all kinds of backup plans to make sure he struck back at the people responsible – he even said he'd hire a professional killer to shoot them if his other plans didn't work fast enough."

Awashima exchanged a quick glance with Munakata and Fushimi before asking Nitta: "Did he give any indication of how he would get the money to hire a killer? It sounds to us as if he wasn't in any state to be employed or draw a salary."

Nitta hesitated before saying: "Am I going to get into trouble if I say I knew all along that Nagato-kun has had ways of using his concealment powers to finance himself? He did it electronically and never took much at a go – just small amounts from banks whenever he needed extra cash. With how he covers his tracks, I wouldn't be surprised if he's recently taken much larger sums without being noticed."

"I see."

"He scared me, really, with all his ranting and how crazy he looked. He didn't stop long – I think we only talked for 15 minutes, then he disappeared into the crowd. He didn't answer any of the text messages I sent him after that either."

"Do you know where he could be now? Did he mention where he was living?"

Nitta shook her head. "I asked him at the very start of our conversation where he was staying and how he was doing, but he didn't answer those questions. He just launched right into his rants."

"Was that the last time you saw him?"

"Surprisingly, no. I met him again the day before yesterday, on the same busy street we had talked on. I think he was waiting for me, but believe me, this time, I actually didn't want to stop to talk to him, because he'd frightened me, you know? But he smiled at me and said that because I had been Mirai-chan's good friend for so many years, I deserved to know that his revenge for her would soon go to a new level and be complete at last. I thought that maybe he meant he'd finally hired the professional killer he'd mentioned, but he said something totally different."

"What did he say?"

"He said that one of the things he had discovered on the Jungle server a long time ago was evidence of the existence of a new superpower that was different from the source that had given us all our powers. He said he had finally been able to 'wake them up' and 'be a conduit for them', were his words. He said he was going to let the new source of power he had found use him to destroy all the people responsible for Mirai-chan's death, and kill many more people too. Then he smiled at me again and faded back into the crowd."

"What did he mean by a new superpower?"

"I don't know. That was all he said. Then the next day I heard Doumyouji-kun was looking for information, and it clicked. I just knew it had to be Nagato-kun he was looking for."

…

"There's no sign that Nagato Hideyoshi has _existed_ since February 3rd," Fushimi muttered as he ploughed through digital records from a host of organisations that might reflect Nagato's activities – anything from rental payments and bank transactions to university attendance, logins on accounts linked to him, temporary-employment records, and unusual financial activity among his family members.

"It's not surprising, Fushimi-san," Enomoto slurred, running his own set of searches, and looking and sounding as tired as Fushimi felt. "He must have been filled with hatred once his girlfriend died, and would have chosen to disappear – which seems to be what he specialises in – once he decided to set his plans for revenge in motion."

It was almost one in the morning, long after Nitta Yumi had told her story. Doumyouji and Kamo had accompanied her home to remain in her apartment overnight with her and her flatmates, in case Nagato unexpectedly paid her another visit. Fushimi, Enomoto and two specialists from the information department had spent the last five hours searching for leads to Nagato's whereabouts, but nothing turned up from after he'd abandoned his Chiba apartment in early February.

Fushimi shivered in his seat. He'd showered and changed into his slacks and a T-shirt with a sleeveless wool vest over it just before starting his shift, but it wasn't warm enough even with the standalone heaters on. He should have got a jacket from his dorm room instead… but the next shift was starting in two minutes, anyway. Akiyama, Fuse and another two information department specialists would take over. Fuse was stepping into the ops room now, so Enomoto handed his section of the job over and dragged himself off to bed. Akiyama entered a minute later, and Fushimi talked him through what else needed to be done, but hung around even after the other man had seated himself in front of the bank of screens.

"Fushimi-san, the captain said you might do this," Akiyama smiled, not taking his eyes off the screens.

"Do what?" Fushimi muttered, looking over Akiyama's shoulder at the searches being run.

"Refuse to leave."

"Tch."

"He said to tell you that if you weren't planning to sleep at once, then you should see him in his office right about… now," Akiyama told Fushimi, holding up his phone as the clock-display digits flashed 0100 hours.

Grumbling under his breath, Fushimi slouched off to Munakata's office. He knocked once, perfunctorily, and pushed the door open.

"Ah, Fushimi-kun," Munakata looked up from his desk, where he was going through a heap of documents. "Work does pile up relentlessly when one is away from the office, doesn't it?"

"Isn't that exactly what I'm always nagging you about in much less stuffy terms?" Fushimi muttered, taking a few steps towards the middle of the room but not approaching any closer to Munakata's desk.

"As I said this afternoon, we can't always leave everything to you," Munakata said, getting to his feet with a smile. He was in his dark blue yukata, one of those he wore to sleep. "I asked Akiyama to send you in here if you stubbornly chose to hang over his shoulder while he worked."

" _Tch._ "

"I've spoken to our police liaison. The gunman hasn't talked. However, they found a picture of me on his phone, taken on a crowded public street. So it's probable that he'd been tracking me rather than following you. It seems he's known to pay small-time criminals to keep an eye on his targets until they're in a place where he feels confident about taking them down without being seen. Whoever he paid to watch me must have waited until they were sure I was at the shrine alone and not to meet anyone, then contacted the gunman, which may explain why no one took a shot at me although I'd been there for at least an hour before you found me."

"You've got to be more alert to whether you're being followed," Fushimi sighed.

"I was… preoccupied," Munakata admitted.

"Hnn."

"I'm glad you there were with me, Fushimi-kun."

"I'll say. If I hadn't, you'd have a hole in your head the size of Yokohama now," Fushimi smirked.

"Even if no one had shot at me, I'd still be glad you were with me."

"Right," Fushimi mumbled, feeling suddenly awkward now that he didn't have all that work in the ops room to fill his mind, and Munakata talking like this was bringing back recollections of the _other_ things that had happened this afternoon – his captain's hand over his, pulling him close, nuzzling his hair… "We've both had a long day…"

"Are you very tired?" Munakata asked solicitously. "Then please go to bed at once."

"Mm," Fushimi murmured vaguely as he turned back towards the door.

But Munakata rounded his desk to draw level with Fushimi, saying: "I think I've learnt to decipher that non-committal murmur as a flat refusal to obey orders, disguised as vague assent."

"Whatever," Fushimi muttered, reaching for one of the vertical brass handles only to have Munakata press his left hand flat against the wood where the two sides of the double door met, keeping them shut.

Fushimi stared at that hand. It wouldn't be hard to just yank one side of the door open to dislodge Munakata's arm. But was that really what he wanted to do…?

"If you're not tired enough to heed my suggestion to go to bed, then, Fushimi-kun, I believe we were interrupted this afternoon," Munakata's voice came low and soft in his left ear.

Fushimi watched as his king's long-fingered hand against the wood slid downwards and turned the lock under the handle. Fushimi's own hand was still on the polished brass bar when he felt Munakata's chest brush up against his shoulders as the captain's other hand cradled his right hip.

"Are you referring to the interruption by the gunman? Or by Hidaka?" Fushimi couldn't resist asking, softly but with an undertone of cheek. "Cos both times, I'm pretty sure you were feeling me up."

He found himself spun around and pressed back against the heavy wooden door.

"Whichever one it pleases you to continue," Munakata said, lifting his left hand off the lock to trace the line of Fushimi's cheek with his fingertips before slipping his clansman's glasses off his face.

Fushimi's vision blurred, but whether their lines were sharply delineated or softened, Munakata's features were always unmistakably beautiful – and at the moment, distinctly predatory in an oddly gentle way.

He became conscious now of how his own bared features might look to his king, so he eased Munakata's eyewear off his face too to make them even, took both pairs, and dropped them into his vest pocket. Feeling a little bolder, he said: "I think we can do better than that and just go for both."

"I was hoping you would say that," Munakata whispered, slipping two fingers under Fushimi's chin and tilting his face up before pressing his lips against his mouth with a degree of hunger that surprised his third in command.

It wasn't a hunger Fushimi could resist, or refuse, though his defiant nature still tried to hold him at bay until it was impossible – until he felt his own hands clutching Munakata's back and his lips parting to let his captain's tongue push in to meet his own.

Then he kissed back at last, hard and eager, matching Munakata's every advance with one of his own, learning fast on the go as he always had in everything he'd done, boldly discovering this unexpected new facet of what it meant to swear allegiance to his true king.

Though it probably wasn't fair to call it unexpected, because it had, he supposed, really been a long time coming.

* * *

 **Note:** Chapter 12's art by Anonymous Fanatic is described by the artist as "a study in lighting". And I do love the warm lighting, the glow on the backs of the two figures' necks, jawlines and hands, as well as the gleam on the brass handle of the door. But I also like the subtle blush on Fushimi's cheeks :)  
See it at anonfanatic dot deviantart dot com slash art slash Becoming-Art-Chapter-12-629535778


	13. Reaching Out

**Warning:** Lemony stuff ahead. Please avoid the whole of the first section if you don't want to read this kind of thing!

* * *

 **Reaching Out**

He'd always thought that kisses would be like fire, burning the skin where they landed, setting the senses ablaze. It was true that there was heat – of course there was, in the searing warmth of another human body and soul seeking deep contact with all his secret places. But Munakata wasn't fire; he was the ocean, lapping at him, enclosing him, warming him with hot undercurrents that swirled around him dizzyingly, keeping him afloat even when it seemed he was being pulled under.

The kisses that had plundered his mouth had already left him nearly breathless, but when Munakata lowered his lips to his neck, the sensations were almost too much. He shivered at the first light nibble against the delicate skin above his left collarbone and tried to squirm away, but was taken by surprise as the waves of pleasure washed through his body. Then he bared his throat, wanting more, _more_ of this, even as he felt how intense it was, as if he were literally being devoured.

Torn between desire for this exquisite drowning in his king's ministrations, and the fear that he would never make it back to shore, Fushimi struggled, trying to push Munakata away as he contradictorily tilted his head to expose more vulnerable flesh to him.

It later occurred to him that the captain could have taken either of two easy ways out when he began to resist: He could have pinned Fushimi firmly to the door and continued doing as he pleased, or he could have backed off and let him go until the next time.

Instead, with one hand on the small of his back and another on the nape of his neck, Munakata smoothly shifted Fushimi and himself around until it was the captain who was now between his clansman and the door. It kept Fushimi from feeling trapped against a hard surface, but at the same time, it took away from him the leverage of that very same surface, which he had used as solid backing in his attempt to push Munakata away. The new position even allowed the captain to wrap his arms more securely around him, and explore other spots that made him moan – his ears, the tender place where his neck joined his shoulder, the hollow of his throat below the jut of his Adam's apple – until Fushimi was a panting mess.

Knowing he wouldn't let him go easily, that he would hold on to him if he tried to get away, was a surprising turn-on. It really was an unexpected discovery, because he'd had more than enough horrifying experiences of things done to him against his will as a child, and he'd thought, once _that man_ had died, that being left to do as he pleased was exactly what he wanted.

Yet, it had been somehow deadening when _that man's_ wife had let him move out of her life without so much as a glance; and it had been almost insulting how Suoh Mikoto had all but ignored him, then released him to the Blue clan without objection; also, he'd actually found it disturbing when Hisui Nagare had told him he could do whatever he liked – even betray him if he chose, though he would pay for it after.

Munakata, on the other hand, had risked leaking the secret of his crucial undercover mission to Misaki, and paid Hirasaka Douhan whatever she asked, all to get him back from Jungle. Clearly, he intended to keep him. When _this_ man took charge, it was different…

Munakata was drawing back now, however, though he kept an arm wrapped around Fushimi's waist while his other hand caressed the nape of his neck, and his face remained very close to his own as he said softly: "Fushimi-kun, if you truly do not want me to do something, say so and I will stop at once. Otherwise, I won't read it as a refusal."

"Never knew you had such a predatory streak," Fushimi breathed through lips that felt lightly swollen, as if they were freshly bitten.

"I think you like it, though?" Munakata smiled, the hand at his waist dipping to Fushimi's bottom and pulling him flush against him, so he could feel that he was as hard as Munakata was.

"Maybe I do," Fushimi admitted, snaking his arms around his captain's neck, before adding more soberly: "But only because it's _you_."

"I understand," Munakata said, flashing a wider smile just before he bent down, making Fushimi's heart race – because if he was bending down right after feeling his stiffening erection through his trousers, was he about to…?

Fushimi yelped as he was suddenly lifted clean off his feet, slung over Munakata's left shoulder, his captain's arms firm as iron bars across the backs of his thighs.

"H-hey… what are you… where…?"

He'd only stammered out that much and looked around, disoriented, at the captain's office from that upside-down perspective for a few seconds before he realised he'd been carried to the step that led up to the tatami mat-covered area sectioned off from the rest of the office by that row of pillars styled after bamboo.

He felt Munakata tugging his indoor shoes off his dangling feet and setting them beside the step before the captain slipped out of his own sandals and glided across the tatami. Then Fushimi found himself carefully deposited, sitting upright, on the low cabinet at the far end.

"I've always wanted to do that to you," Munakata chuckled.

"What?" Fushimi grumbled, shifting the ornamental porcelain urn on the cabinet top a few inches away from him in case he knocked it over. "Haul me around like a sack of rice?"

"No. Carry you off to my den as if you were a mate won in battle," said the Blue king in unabashedly smug fashion as he bent down to comb through Fushimi's mussed-up hair with his fingers before kissing him on the forehead.

"Closet caveman," Fushimi huffed in embarrassment, hardly knowing where to look.

"Haven't you ever had caveman fantasies?" Munakata teased, shifting aside to slide one of the cabinet doors open so he could put the urn away.

"I'm surprised you've even _heard_ of caveman fantasies," Fushimi remarked. "Some of the most basic things you'd never known before your clansmen introduced them to you really had people wondering what planet you grew up on, you know."

"Oh?" Munakata smirked, returning to his previous position in front of Fushimi to claim another kiss from him. "You may be surprised at what peculiar things I _do_ know."

"Don't tell me – I just know they'll make my ears burn," Fushimi warned.

"Then you don't want any ear-burning caveman-fantasy bedtime stories?" Munakata asked, framing Fushimi's face with his hands so he would look at him again, and stroking his thumbs gently over that pair of finely shaped eyebrows.

" _Please_ don't tell me that's your idea of bedroom talk," Fushimi groaned.

"They may help you sleep better," Munakata suggested playfully.

"I think you know what will help me sleep better," Fushimi mumbled, shifting a little awkwardly on the cabinet.

"Ah," Munakata said knowingly. "Are you comfortable here? Perhaps you would like to lie down on the tatami – I do have a blanket–"

"No, right here is fine," he stated, sounding rather bolder than he felt.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. You asked me to stay to continue what was interrupted earlier today, so how about we _continue_ continuing it?"

"Oh," Munakata smirked. "But what was interrupted earlier was an embrace, and the lead-up to a kiss, which we seem to have already done. Was there something more we were supposed to do?"

Fushimi glared at him and began to push off from the cabinet in a huff, growling: "Fine. I'll go off to my room to do the something more that will help me sleep better tonight. You always did say that you didn't need people who couldn't solve their own problems, so I'll 'solve this problem' by myself."

But Munakata, laughing lightly, eased him back down against the cabinet, saying: "Fushimi-kun, I was merely teasing."

"Were you?"

"Of course I was. _This_ …" he said, glancing down at Fushimi's body, "…is _not_ a problem I want you to solve by yourself."

"Well, I should think that's only fair, as you're the one who caused it," he said, feeling the skin heat up over his cheekbones.

"So let me deal with it," the captain said, slipping his clansman's vest off and setting it on the cabinet top before reaching for the hem of his T-shirt.

But Fushimi put his hands over Munakata's to stop him, saying: "No, leave it on. It's… a cold night." He didn't wish to explain that while it was fine for Munakata to have seen the scars from his self-inflicted burn in neutral contexts like the bath, he didn't want that mark of such a mentally and emotionally disturbed time in his life hanging over the captain while they were engaged in… well, a new step in their relationship.

"You are perfectly pleasing to me as you are," Munakata stated simply. "Nothing that makes you what you are disturbs me."

Fushimi turned his face aside.

"So there is nothing at all that you need to hide from me, anywhere," Munakata added.

Fushimi kept his face turned away for a minute, but eventually pulled his T-shirt off over his head. Munakata took it from him, placed it neatly on top of the vest, then crouched before the younger man to kiss his chest, lightly tease his hardening nipples, caress his scar tenderly, and stroke him from his sides to his hips, making Fushimi moan all over again. By the time those gentle hands made their way to the drawstring tie at his slacks, Fushimi readily leaned forward against his captain's shoulders, then rocked back, to help him get his trousers and boxers off.

He shivered as much from the cold air as from arousal, but to his astonishment, Munakata straightened up, swiftly untied the obi of his yukata, and disrobed too – then draped the yukata over Fushimi's shoulders, saying: "There – that will help keep you warm, Fushimi-kun – and I can still see as much of you as I please."

For the second time in a few short minutes, Fushimi found himself not knowing where to look, with Munakata's perfect body completely bared before him. The man seemed unashamed of every detail, from his impressive erection to the scar from the time when the Colourless king had stabbed him while possessing Eric Surt's body. He couldn't look full into Munakata's face either, right now, because those violet eyes were dropping to Fushimi's belly, then going lower down, to where the extent of his arousal seemed too obvious even with the yukata shielding his back and shoulders.

"Are you all right, Fushimi-kun?" he asked gently, raising his eyes to his clansman's face again as he crouched once more before him.

"Maybe you should tell me that," Fushimi murmured in embarrassment, but with the beginnings of a smile. "You're the one gallantly offering to solve a problem that _you_ brought about, while satisfying your caveman fantasies in the process, so for all I know, you've got quite the racket going here and I'm just a victim of your smooth con job."

"Well, then, it looks like I had better deliver on quality in solving this problem," Munakata gave an answering smile as he gripped Fushimi's hips, causing the younger man to draw a sharp breath.

"Yeah, I should think you'd better–" the snarky comment he'd wanted to make was cut off as Munakata dipped his head into his lap and took Fushimi's hard length into his mouth.

Fushimi gasped and threw his head back. If Munakata hadn't foreseen that and smoothly grabbed the lapels of the yukata to keep him upright – even as he continued without a hitch to work his mouth and tongue up and down him – Fushimi would have banged his head against the wall behind the cabinet he was seated on. But seriously, the Blue clansman wouldn't have cared if he'd given himself a concussion, because if the kisses on his mouth and neck had been overwhelming enough, this was far beyond anything he had ever experienced – his own hand simply didn't compare with the smooth, wet heat of Munakata's mouth.

He'd wondered earlier if anyone might be lurking outside the office as he and the captain made out against the door. But he didn't care about that any longer as Munakata eased him back against the wall by the taut yukata until it was safe to let go of the lapels, then Fushimi cried out even louder when his captain's hands slowly pulled his hips forward over the cabinet top and pushed his knees apart, giving him more access to his body. One hand wrapped around his erection and stroked him firmly as he drew his mouth away to kiss his inner thighs and the soft, delicate skin of his scrotum, leaving Fushimi writhing helplessly against the wall, eyes closed in bliss, unable to think coherently except to wonder how much better it could get.

Even _that_ thought flew out of his mind when it did in fact get better once Munakata took his cock back into his mouth again and increased the pace, pressing his tongue hard against his flesh and drawing it up and down all the way from the base to the tip. At the same time, one of his hands caressed his balls while the other firmly held his hips steady. Fushimi, panting hard, tangled his fingers in Munakata's glossy hair in an effort to hold his head right there where it was, though he did his very best not to pull his captain's tresses or dig his nails into his scalp despite all his instincts urging him to do just that.

He felt his balls draw up tight against his body, and heard himself make a desperate guttural noise in his throat as he approached the edge. He struggled to warn Munakata that he was on the verge of climaxing, but the captain already knew, and he held Fushimi down firmly with his hands while keeping his lips and tongue tight around his cock as he came hard, crying out, his cum shooting into the other man's mouth.

The captain received it all – every spurt from him – without apparent trouble, and carefully pulled back from him only when he saw Fushimi cracking his eyes open. He had obviously swallowed it all, because none of it was left in his mouth when he leaned over to plant a kiss on Fushimi's lips, and to say: "Better than caveman bedtime stories, I hope?"

"Much, much better," Fushimi slurred, raising his hands to Munakata's waist to keep him there, because he just knew the man would try to pack him off to bed immediately without letting him reciprocate.

And he wanted badly to reciprocate.

When Munakata straightened up before him and made to slip the yukata off his shoulders, Fushimi wouldn't let him. Instead, he boldly dropped his hands to the king's bottom and squeezed, declaring: "Captain, I believe it's now my turn to solve your problem."

"Fushimi-kun, you need your rest. I'm quite capable of solving my own–"

"Bullshit," Fushimi grinned. "All the nasty missions you've sent me on these past few years have been all about making me solve your fucking problems, so don't give me that crap now."

"Oh my, the language that comes out of that mouth of yours…"

"If it's too much for your fine sensibilities, Captain Caveman, you know what to put _into_ my mouth to shut me up," he said suggestively, backing up his inviting words by leaning forward to kiss the weeping tip of Munakata's erection.

He was gratified to hear a barely-there hiss of breath from the captain, and even more gratified when it turned into a throaty murmur as Fushimi wrapped his lips around the head of his cock, and his fingers around the base. Munakata's erection was thicker and slightly longer than Fushimi's – he needed to go slow and ease himself into this if he wasn't to choke.

He briefly wondered if he should have made Munakata sit or lie down instead of standing up in front of him while he himself remained seated, but the captain didn't seem to mind. In fact, he seemed to like it that Fushimi could keep one hand on his ass while the other worked in tandem with his mouth to slowly, slowly stroke his fully hard length the best the younger man knew how.

Fushimi couldn't be certain he was doing it right, or well enough, as this was new to him. But he could extrapolate from what he had just experienced, and figure out the right moves based on what he himself would have liked. It seemed he was a decent learner at this too, because in a matter of moments, Munakata was bracing himself with one hand on the wall above the cabinet and the other hand on Fushimi's shoulder, and the soft noises he was making were sounding more like proper moans.

The thought that he was the one drawing those noises from his king made Fushimi himself moan around Munakata's length, and this prompted a gasp from the captain. The hand on his shoulder gripped Fushimi reflexively, so he knew he was getting it as right as he possibly could. He risked taking Munakata deeper into his mouth, a little closer to his throat, while squeezing his right buttock hard, and the Blue king inhaled sharply, leaning further over him towards the wall behind Fushimi.

Munakata was disciplined – and caring – enough not to thrust into Fushimi's mouth, knowing that the younger man wasn't experienced enough for it. But he was bracing himself harder against Fushimi's shoulder now, and his breaths were coming heavier and faster. Fushimi ran the ridges on the roof of his mouth over the head of Munakata's cock, and the captain moaned again, then gasped out: "Fushimi-kun, you may want to pull back now."

But Fushimi held tight to Munakata, wanting him to come in his mouth – which he did, hard, letting out a single cry above Fushimi's head as he peaked. Then he allowed himself a single shallow thrust to finish before carefully withdrawing, his hands caressing Fushimi's face and hair as he pulled out.

"Here, you can spit it out," Munakata said with concern, reaching into the cabinet under Fushimi to draw out a bowl – one of those he used when he drank his green tea here. Fushimi shook his head and swallowed the load; he absolutely was _not_ spitting into the captain's tea bowl.

"Are you sure you're all right with that?" Munakata chuckled, putting the bowl away and crouching down before him again to look up into his face.

"It tastes odd, but it's all right."

"I know how picky you are about the things you eat, so that can't have been pleasant for you," Munakata laughed softly again.

"I'll live."

"Yes, I'm sure you will. Now you must return to your room and get at least a few hours of good sleep."

"I think I'll sleep really well now," Fushimi agreed with a smirk, returning the robe to Munakata before handing him his glasses from his vest pocket, and pulling on his own clothes and spectacles.

They put the urn back on the cabinet top together and walked to the entryway of the office, where Munakata kissed Fushimi again before unlocking the door and switching off the lights. As it was 2am, in the middle of Akiyama's and Fuse's shift in the ops room, no one else was wandering the corridors to see them.

So they returned to the men's dorm, where Munakata saw Fushimi to his room and stepped inside briefly for one last kiss goodnight before he went off to his own quarters.

Fushimi slept like a log for six hours straight.

…

"So the Red king wishes to call on me," Munakata remarked, when Awashima reported to his office at 7am. "To discuss new information she has learnt about something 'waking up'."

"Yes, Captain," Awashima confirmed. "Kusanagi-san texted me an hour ago to request the meeting. It seems Anna-chan has some important news for us."

"A timely proposal," Munakata said thoughtfully. "I had been about to suggest a visit to Homra this morning too."

"This must have something to do with what Nitta Yumi said Nagato Hideyoshi told her two days ago, regarding the new superpowers that he claimed were waking up."

"Yes," Munakata replied. "The story that the god and the demon told us through Kushina-san indicated that other gods had also been sealed away during the war that eventually wiped them all out. There was no mention of other demons having been given the same treatment – possibly because that race of gods was stricter than that race of demons. Perhaps, even further back in time, long before the two beings of the Dresden Slate were punished the way they had been, there may also have been other gods condemned to the same eternal living death."

"If so, Nagato may have somehow woken one of them up, since what he said to Nitta-san suggests that the superpower he has discovered is different from that of the slate."

"It is possible," Munakata agreed. "In the years before Hisui Nagare and Iwafune Tenkei were able at last to steal the Dresden Slate, they must have searched for all kinds of other means to add to or reinforce the powers keeping Hisui alive. First and foremost, they wanted the slate, of course. But in the event that failed, they might have conducted a search for possible backup powers. Perhaps at some point, they discovered evidence of the existence of a power similar to the slate, although it does not appear that they ever had actual access to it. However, if they stored data about its existence on the Jungle server, then Nagato Hideyoshi, with his abilities to root around in there at his leisure, may have stumbled upon the data, found it interesting, and copied the information onto his own computer systems. After Yamakawa Mirai's death, in his rage and grief, he could have, among other things, tracked down this new power and discovered a way to awaken it, although we have no idea yet how he could possibly have done that. All this, of course, is mere speculation."

"But if the speculation turns out to be accurate, the powers from the slate may have just told Anna-chan something that could shed light on this," Awashima noted. "After all, if one of their kind – or at least, if one of the god's kind – has just awakened, they are likely to have also become aware of it. The Silver king did not know of such a possibility, I guess, which is why he did not pose such questions to the god and demon through Anna-chan. But if, after we all left yesterday's meeting, Anna-chan continued to communicate with the powers, they may have told her some important things that they weren't asked."

"Very possible. Let us see what Kushina-san has to tell us when she arrives later. In the meantime, have we put into effect the precautions that we agreed last night we should take against Nagato?"

"Yes, Captain," Awashima confirmed. "All Sceptre 4 personnel, as well as members of Homra, the Silver clan and the Gold clan have been advised not to step out into public places alone, and to be on alert for other possible assassins. The Gold clan has also distributed the Strain-inhibiting materials to the other clans in the hope that we can at least disrupt Nagato's abilities momentarily if any of us should encounter him, or in the event that he conceals himself from our senses in order to slip into any of our territory to cause harm. However, ordinary human assassins are likely to be of greater concern to us than Nagato himself, considering what Nitta-san told us about his character."

Munakata nodded.

Last night, in the closing minutes of their interview with Nitta Yumi, they had asked her what the chances were of Nagato – with his impressive concealment abilities – deciding to take revenge to a more personal level by slipping unseen into Sceptre 4 or Homra to directly harm the kings and clansmen.

Her answer had been: _"Nagato-kun has always worked in a more… how shall I say it… remote way, I guess. We used to tease him when we were young teens about how he could easily sneak into the girls' changing rooms in school or spy on us in our bedrooms, or invisibly play pranks on people who had been nasty to him. But he was absolutely appalled at the suggestion, and he said he wasn't that sort of pervert. As we grew up, we realised it was true. He didn't like to do direct spying or carry out unpleasant acts with his own hands. He would always rather do things through his computers or convince someone else to do the deed by bartering services with them. So if you ask me if he'd conceal himself to follow me here to spy on me as I tell you about him, or sneak into my apartment to harm me, or slip in here to stab one of you, I'd say that it isn't like him at all. I can't guarantee anything, of course, as he may have changed over the years, but I don't think it's the way he does things."_

Still, they wanted to take precautions, and the Strain-inhibiting materials and defensive weapons should be of some help.

However, if Nagato's Strain nature was starting to change into something else because of the new superpower he had discovered, who knew if the tools they had at their disposal would be of any use against him?

…

"Captain, this sounds like complicated and dangerous new information," Fushimi said when Munakata went to his room at 8.30am to see him before he left for Nanakamado. "Let me stay here today so I can hear what Anna might have to tell us – I'll shift my physio appointment and lab research to another day."

"Absolutely not," Munakata said, curving the palm of his right left hand gently over Fushimi's right cheek. "I can assess what Kushina-san has to report as well as you can. So go for all your appointments, and keep working with the researchers on how to customise the artificial aura to each user – that's the best chance we have of using these powers to their full potential if we can't rely any more on the ones that were from the slate."

"You know I'll work hard on that anyway," Fushimi sighed. "But for now…"

"For now, I will hear the Red king out and not 'flounce out' on her again as you accused me of doing."

"Hmph."

"All right, it's almost time for you to leave. Remember our new rule that no one is to go anywhere alone. I've asked Benzai and Hidaka to drive you to Nanakamado in one of our unmarked cars. You are also to call Lieutenant Awashima once you are done there so that someone can pick you up."

"It's not necessary," Fushimi grumbled. "I've always worked alone. And all of us are pretty overworked right now. The Silver clan and Homra guys are also way less protected than we are – except Misaki for the moment – so I don't want to behave like such a wuss."

"This is not being a… 'wuss'," Munakata insisted. "Nagato Hideyoshi is a powerful Strain who is using all kinds of means to harm the clans, so we don't want to take unnecessary chances by having any clansman – or king – wandering around in unsecured areas alone."

"I still think it's unnecessary, but I'll put up with it for now until I can't tolerate it any more," Fushimi said. "Then don't be surprised if I go walkabout by myself without warning."

Munakata leaned over and kissed Fushimi on the mouth tenderly and deeply, finally drawing back from his lover to whisper: "Don't make me worry too much, Fushimi-kun."

"Mm."

"I know what that mumble means," Munakata sighed. He wished he had more time to convince his stubborn third in command, but it was a busy working day, everything was rushed, and there just weren't enough minutes right now, it seemed.

It was Fushimi's turn to lean over to his king to peck him on the lips and say with a grin: "I'll see you this evening, Captain."

"Be safe, Fushimi-kun."

"You too."

He left the dorm, and Munakata had to watch him go as he had watched him go many a time, never knowing if each time would be the last occasion on which they would see each other safe and sound.

It was, as Weismann might say, all about duty before sentiment. But that principle had never felt nearly as difficult to uphold as it did now.

* * *

Anonymous Fanatic has done such beautiful painting-like art for this chapter! I love the tenderness of the moment and the gentleness of the expressions on both their faces, and of course, the intimate atmosphere created by the light and shadows. See it at anon fanatic dot deviantart dot com slash art slash Becoming-Art-Chapter-13-631584248


	14. Exposed, Hidden

**Exposed, Hidden**

"Mrrrow!" Neko growled, transforming into her kitten form on the bed in the Silver clan's Ashinaka High School dorm room. A second later, with a puff of exasperation, she switched to human form again – without clothes, alas for Hieda Tooru, who hastily covered his eyes.

" _Baka_ Neko!" Kuroh scolded from the kitchen, where he was getting breakfast ready. "Stop fretting! And _stop_ checking repeatedly that you can still change forms!"

"Why is she so agitated?" Hieda asked, daring to peek out from between his fingers only when the next hissed exclamation indicated she was back to being a cat. "Because of these things the Sceptre 4 lady gave us this morning?"

He meant the four kits that Lieutenant Awashima Seri and one of her men had brought right to the doorstep of their dorm room even before the sun was up, each kit comprising some mysterious liquid in an aerosol container, a short stick of the kind he saw people use in certain martial arts, and a length of rope. Every item sat in a thick blue fabric holder.

Weismann-san smiled at Hieda and patted the kitten. "Yes," he said. "Neko thinks that having to carry Strain-inhibiting materials will interfere with her own abilities."

With a _poof_ , Neko popped up as human only long enough to wail: "What if Neko can't become a neko now with these things?!"

Hiding his eyes behind his hands again after unintentionally getting an eyeful of those bouncy breasts, Hieda reflected on what the lieutenant had told them – she had taken care to explain matters carefully to him, as he was still new to this world of kings and clans that had lost their auras, and Strains that mostly had not.

The spray, stick and rope were imbued with Strain-inhibiting substances, to give them a fighting chance against Nagato Hideyoshi in case he came looking for them or they ran into him. Nagato was a Strain whom Sceptre 4 strongly suspected was the person trying to harm the clans and members of the public, the lieutenant had said, giving them a photograph that came from one of Nagato's old friends – he looked to Hieda like a perfectly ordinary man in his early 20s. The lieutenant had also said that the Blue and Gold clans were working with the school authorities and using special equipment to beef up security on the island after someone had fired a gun at the Blue king yesterday. With the new school term starting, it was crucial to protect not only the Silver clan but also the students. Regular human assailants they could keep out, but a Strain specialising in concealment would be tricky, so the kits were for emergency use in case he confronted them – the spray would temporarily impair his Strain abilities, the stick was for self-defence, and the rope could restrain him if necessary.

Another cry came from the human-again teenager on the bed: "Neko is a Strain too! These things will take away Neko's powers!"

"They won't if you keep them in their insulation coverings until they're needed," Kuroh sighed, popping his head round the kitchen doorway. "Sceptre 4 clansmen handled such substances all the time even when they had their powers, although these things could also weaken clan aura. They managed it using those very same insulating wrappings you see covering each item. Anyway, the kits are just in case worse comes to worst. I hope it doesn't, because even though this Nagato fellow doesn't sound like much of a hand-to-hand combatant, I still can't see any of you getting far in a scrap with him if he uses his Strain powers to attack while hidden. Oddly, for once, Neko may have the best chance among you three for coming out on top in a fight!"

"Neko," Weismann-san said kindly, pulling the blanket from the bed around her shoulders. "Anna-chan has a set of these things too, even though like you, she still has her Strain powers and even remnants of her king's powers."

"She has these things too?" Neko blinked her mismatched eyes.

"Of course. Lieutenant Awashima said she would also be distributing the kits to Homra. And I'm sure Anna-chan will handle the items well and sensibly."

"Okay," Neko pouted thoughtfully.

"We're all taking precautions."

"If Anna-chan can deal with them, so can I," Neko conceded.

"That's the spirit. Now, don't forget what all the clans have agreed on since we've been made aware of this person's concealment abilities, computer skills and readiness to hire professional killers – no more confidential messages through e-mail or text – arrange face-to-face meetings in secure locations instead. Also, Nagato may have worked out by now that I am alive and back in this body, in which case he may target me as the one who decided to destroy the slate. Or he may have spotted Hieda-kun and assumed that the Silver king did not die when Jungle's headquarters collapsed, but returned to the teenage body he was in at the time, in which case Hieda-kun may be targeted. So everyone is to stick together, and we're to watch one another's backs."

"Yes! We will!" Neko declared energetically, throwing her arms up and exposing her body again. "Neko will protect Shiro and Kuroh and Hieda and Kukuri! Neko will protect all of us! It takes a Strain to beat a Strain!"

"Crazy cat," Kuroh muttered, shaking his head, but with an affectionate eye-roll.

"Thank you, Neko," Weismann laughed, trying once more to shield her (or rather, shield Hieda from her) with the blanket. "Although, considering what Lieutenant Awashima shared about another superpower Nagato said he was willing to be used by, I wonder how much longer he will remain a Strain of the kind we are familiar with. I have a feeling we'll have to work fast to snare him before he lets this new power he mentioned turn him into something we won't even begin to know how to catch."

"Well, we'll do all we can to help Sceptre 4 and the Timeless Palace," Kuroh said, entering the room with a tray of breakfast dishes.

"Kuroh, does that mean you're willing to consider the Blue clan's request…?" Weismann-san began.

"Yes. Although I'd rather not, I _will_ arrange a meeting with Mishakuji Yukari so we can ask him if he knows anything about this 'other power' from his time in Jungle."

…

He'd grunted, grumbled and groaned his way through his 45-minute session with the sadistic physiotherapist assigned to him by Dr Ozaki. Then he'd taken a quick shower at the gym before heading for the hospital wing, where Dr Sakamoto and Dr Ozaki had arranged for him to have an EEG and fMRI. The processes were taxing, as he was required to simulate various conditions through thought, visualisation or reaction to stimuli, with and without the use of the crystal he had resonated with so well yesterday.

It was part of the preparation for the new stage of the artificial-aura project – with a few selected Gold clansmen, Fushimi would be in the first batch of test subjects to have crystals customised to their individual brainwave patterns. He hadn't expected this project to be easy, but he also hadn't expected to feel so drained after going through one scenario, simulation and emotion after another during the EEG and fMRI.

Knowing his luck, all the EEG and scan would show would be that he'd spent the entire time trying _not_ to think about what he and Munakata had got up to last night. Great. Now he would come up in the readings as a repressed sex-obsessive…

"You look like you need a change of pace before we go back to the lab," Dr Ozaki's voice came from the end of the corridor in which Fushimi was leaning back against the wall, glasses off, pinching his nose bridge between his finger and thumb. "It's unexpectedly demanding, isn't it?"

"I've been through worse," Fushimi muttered, slipping his spectacles back on.

"No doubt," Dr Ozaki replied dryly before beckoning him to walk with her. "I'll let you stretch your legs and give you time for lunch. Anyway, Sakamoto-sensei is still salivating over the details you provided him about the Blue king's successful use of the artificial crystal in yesterday's shooting attempt, so he won't be ready for a while. And if I haven't said so yet, I'm very glad that you are both unhurt."

"Thanks."

"For now, I'll update you on the people in the psychokinesis cases that Sceptre 4 transferred to our care," she said, leading him towards the psychiatric ward of the research facility. "We were able to confirm only last night that all four of them have brain tumours."

"What?" Fushimi gasped, his mouth going suddenly dry.

"Up until yesterday, the only one we had been able to put through either an MRI or a CAT scan was Muruta Kazu, while he was unconscious when brought in four days ago."

"Just after he attacked Yata Misaki."

"That's right. We identified a small glioma in his motor cortex immediately, but for all we knew then, he could have had it for a long time. We couldn't compare it with any other psychokinesis subjects that day, because the first one apprehended by Sceptre 4, Aoki Tadao, had not been transferred from your detention barracks. Even when we received custody the next day of the Tanakas – the married couple who attacked Daichi Universal Corporation's headquarters – we couldn't test them because they were in a highly agitated state. While it had been necessary for us to sedate Muruta because of the situation Homra was in, we could not ethically do the same to the Tanakas because they were already under control by the psychic brainwave-suppressive shackles your clan restrained them with. They did not calm down enough to give us their consent to put them through any tests until last night. As you know, we also received custody of Aoki Tadao on the day we started treating the Tanakas, so we were able to spare manpower and time to scan him – with his full consent – only last evening too."

"The tumours were caused by their playing the games?" Fushimi asked in shock.

"Cause and effect are not conclusive at this stage. But the probability of there being a link is high."

"Will the tumours… harm them?"

"At present, the gliomas appear benign. There is no indication that they are causing distressing symptoms either. None of the patients has reported severe or frequent headaches, nausea, giddiness, impairment of motor functions or visual disturbances. Only Muruta had nausea and headaches after he regained consciousness, but those were most likely due to the head injuries he sustained when the Red clansmen knocked him unconscious."

"Do you know if the tumours could grow or spread? Become fatal?"

"We don't. But if we are right in drawing a link between the presence of the tumours and the extreme psychokinesis training the subjects put themselves through, there is a possibility the growths could shrink or even disappear once enough time has passed following the subjects' cessation of the training. None of them reported finding and using the app any earlier than the first week of February, so they've been playing those games for about eight weeks. Let us hope it was a short-enough period to make the damage to their health reversible."

"Nothing in my earlier research indicated that brain tumours could arise from this programme – only hallucinations, paranoia, mood swings… how the hell exactly did the alterations Nagato made to the programme bring about _tumours_?"

"Our researchers believe, so far, that the tumours are not a deliberate result of Nagato Hideyoshi's programme. Rather, the programme he adapted from your abandoned research was designed to push its users' physical brain cells, chemical makeup and neural links so far beyond safe limits that it would start to damage the cells, and do more damage as the users' psychokinesis skills became more advanced. Damaged cells have a higher likelihood of turning abnormal than healthy ones; such growths may be the result."

"We have to stop this guy."

"We do. But let's focus on what we can achieve with the artificial aura, which will increase our likelihood of finding ways to pin him down and counteract his moves. The psychokinesis subjects are improving at their own pace, so let's take hope in what progress they make towards recovery."

"What made these people able to advance so quickly in these games, when we know of others who progressed much more slowly?" Fushimi asked, thinking of Akagi Shouhei's cousin, as well as other people Sceptre 4 had found by tracing, through the online stores, who had downloaded the app. "Were they merely more talented?"

"We are still conducting scans and chemical tests, but what we can tell so far is that these four subjects' motor cortexes were unusually responsive to the training, enabling them to project electromagnetic brainwaves far more powerfully and over a much greater distance than other users. Correspondingly, they also suffered much more strongly what resembled an extreme form of acute schizophrenia, with their dopamine levels rising at a rapid rate, and their postsynaptic dopamine receptors also becoming hypersensitive. We don't know, however, if their motor cortexes developed all the unusually dense neural connections they have now because of their aptitude for the game, or whether they were that way to begin with and therefore able to progress fast in the game. And it is possible that the way their physical brains happen to be structured is related to the ability of their VTA neurons to manufacture the large quantities of dopamine that caused their mental damage. The good thing is, the programme is such that people who don't keep playing the games won't retain their powers. It's not a permanent change that, done once, will remain with the person for the long term. So we hope that given more time, all will return to normal."

"How much longer will you keep them here?"

"Only Aoki is ready to be released. We have locked a psychic brainwave-suppressing bracelet onto his wrist in preparation for his going home in a day or two, so that even if he is foolish enough to pick up the game again from other devices we don't know about that he has already downloaded it to, he won't gain any benefit from it – and should sustain no further harm. The bracelet is designed to look similar to those popular magnetic health ones worn by many people, so no one who sees it will think anything of it. We've also issued medical letters and certificates to give him an appropriate cover story for his abrupt absence from work."

"What about the people who witnessed his attack?"

"We do have some Strains in the Gold clan whose memory-wiping powers remain intact," Dr Ozaki revealed. "We don't want to give too many people reason to panic about more strange powers breaking out so soon after the events in January. And we want the victims of the game to be able to reintegrate into their normal lives without such black marks on their records."

Dr Ozaki showed Fushimi into an examination room, where another doctor and a nurse were speaking to Aoki Tadao, the middle-aged man apprehended by Fuse and Gotou, whom Fushimi himself had questioned in the Sceptre 4 detention cell a few nights ago.

"I'm very sorry for the trouble I've caused," Aoki said, standing up and bowing low when he recognised Fushimi. "I'm grateful that the authorities have made it possible for me to keep my current job by not telling my present employer what actually happened. I would never be able to stay there if they thought I was… mentally ill."

However much campaigners for the fair treatment of people suffering from psychological disorders had tried to change Japanese society's attitudes towards mental illness, it remained an area few would discuss frankly. Most companies would not hesitate to terminate the employment of anyone with a mental ailment; even average clinical depression was regarded with suspicion, what more a disorder similar to paranoid schizophrenia brought on by exposure to a brain-damaging programme?

"Just be grateful you didn't kill anyone," Fushimi remarked bluntly.

"Aoki-san, do not fret about such matters. Focus on recovering fully so that you can have a good life with your family – and never play those games again, or any others that promise you strange powers," Dr Ozaki told him more tactfully before asking the other doctor to please continue with his examination.

After leaving the room, she elaborated to Fushimi: "Aoki-san's current employer and family members were informed by our hospital that he suffered a severe concussion when he was hit on the head by a chair sent flying during a gas-stove explosion at a restaurant, and his identity was unknown for a few days because he was unconscious and his wallet was missing. We have already altered the memories of the people who saw what he did."

Dr Ozaki led Fushimi to another room. They didn't enter, but he could look through the glass panel on the door to see a man and a woman, who appeared to be in their late twenties, nodding earnestly as they spoke to two doctors and two nurses.

"Those are the Tanakas," Dr Ozaki explained. "They were at a very advanced stage of the programme, and we feared our treatment would have little effect on them. But the drugs we have prescribed appear to have arrested their worst symptoms of delusions and thought disorders. They are already doing better than Muruta, whose treatment began more than 30 hours before theirs. Although Muruta's condition has stabilised significantly from when he was first brought in, and he should see no lasting damage from the physical injuries, he still has hallucinations and tends towards violent mood swings whenever his medication starts to wear off. Even if he recovers further, he may have to be put on a long-term regimen similar to that for treating paranoid schizophrenia."

"If Nagato is this vicious already, how much worse is he going to get with the 'new powers' his friend said he was ranting about?" Fushimi muttered. "All classified data has been moved off your servers to standalone computers to keep Nagato from prying, right?"

"Yes."

"Please let me use the computer the psychokinetic info is on. I want to go over my data again with your researchers to see if I've missed a pattern somewhere."

…

Izumo had long described her powers as an art, not a science. He said that even at the height of her abilities, she had seen people's basic truths rather than the bare facts – she had known that Tatara would die young if he stayed close to Mikoto, but she had not known how or when. It had been every bit as shocking to her as it was to everyone else when he was murdered. And Mikoto… she had seen that his end would be violent, but again, she had not known how or when. Even up to the last moment, she had hoped against hope that he would survive, only to be devastated when the Blue king crossed the bridge from the island alone, his sword, gloves, clothes all smeared with Mikoto's lifeblood.

So today, as Anna stepped into Sceptre 4's main building, escorted by Izumo and Rikio, and received by Reisi and Seri, she saw that the essential truth of Reisi's future was no longer clouded as it had been these past few days. But just as she had not known yesterday that someone would try to shoot him, she could not tell what actual events lay ahead for him. Still, there was brightness in his outlook where there had previously been pain and obscurity.

"Welcome to Sceptre 4, Kushina-san," Reisi said formally, but with a genuine smile, as he greeted her at the foot of the sweeping staircase.

"Reisi," she said, mirroring his smile as she stepped towards him briskly. "I was relieved to learn that you and Saruhiko were unharmed on the school island yesterday. And I was very glad that Saruhiko found you. I tried to trace you with my marbles after you left the bar, but I couldn't."

"Thank you for your concern, Kushina-san," Reisi said gently. "The fact that you did not foresee yesterday that I would die young must have meant that nothing would have come of the attempt on my life, anyway."

Anna shook her head solemnly and explained: "No, Reisi. For a few days, you have been dark to me. Things were hidden. You had choices to make, and I couldn't _see_ your future, because you could have chosen any of the paths before you."

"Oh?" Reisi asked, sounding curious.

Anna lifted her hand and beckoned him to bend down towards her. When he came within whispering distance, she stood on tiptoe and said softly into his ear: "You are already very happy with him, am I right? I think you will be even happier in time if all goes as you plan, but because _he_ isn't controlled by you, his actions may affect the outcome. That is what I see for now."

She lowered her heels to the ground as he righted his posture slowly, adjusted his glasses, and said with some depth of feeling: "Once again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, Kushina-san."

"I am happy for you," she smiled. "But today, we must talk about what I learnt from the god and demon last night."

"You continued searching them for answers we didn't ask for, even after Weismann-san had left for the day?"

"Yes. I tried to ask them to locate the person who had put up the dangerous programme where many people could find it – I didn't know how else to describe the Internet to them when I approached them with the question – and I opened the app on Shouhei's cousin's phone to make my meaning clearer. They did understand me, but said the person was hidden from them. At the time, I didn't know his name, but after Seri visited us last night to tell us about Nagato and Mirai, I asked the powers again about him by name. They still could not locate him – he remained hidden."

"Hidden by his own powers of concealment?"

"No," Anna replied. "His powers originated from the slate, so even if they can hide him from everyone else, the god and demon would be able to find him. But what is hiding him now, they told me, is another sealed-away god who is starting to wake up. Before, this other god had been completely asleep like _our_ god and demon were before sorcerers awoke them. This other god has not fully awakened – he is like they were in the state when they could impart their powers but had little consciousness of doing so. Something is making him stir, and he may awaken more fully in time. He is not a god who was on good terms with our god and demon."

"Are we being dragged into another war?" Reisi asked her, his concern clear.

"Our god and demon do not want any more war or destruction. But if we need to defend ourselves or defend innocent lives, they are willing to give us their power the way they gave it to me when I asked for it – when I desperately wanted to protect Misaki."

"As you know, I am still mulling over their offer. For now, however, do they know how we can stop this other power from waking up and causing trouble?"

"They do not. But if this Nagato Hideyoshi is being hidden by the other god, then he is being used by him too, and if we stop Nagato, the waking of the other god may also be stopped."

…

Considering what had gone before, it was a little surreal that they were meeting in the normal setting of a café late in the afternoon – albeit one run by a Strain who was friendly with Sceptre 4, and who had allowed the Blue and Gold clansmen in plain clothes to prep the entryways with Strain-inhibiting materials under the guise of cleaning the glass doors.

The tone of the meeting was also surprisingly civil, although Mishakuji Yukari in typical fashion could not resist teasing his former kouhai.

"Kuroh-chan, what a pleasure to receive your request for a friendly meeting – I thought you were still mad at me," the former Jungle clansman said with a sly smile as they slid into their chairs in a quiet corner.

"I _am_ still angry with you, Yukari… senpai…" Kuroh added the honorific reluctantly, using it to indicate that while ties were mending, he still wished to keep Yukari a step away from the closeness of the time when he had addressed him as an older brother. "But Ichigen-sama bore no resentment towards you, and perhaps I need to learn not to judge too harshly what I do not fully understand."

"Well, Kuroh-chan, whatever may have prompted you to initiate this meeting, I'm glad to see you – you're looking perfectly beautiful, although I suspect you're wielding your kitchen knives more than your katana these days. And I see you've brought company that is just as pleasing to the eye."

Lieutenant Awashima, in a simple white blouse and camel-toned straight skirt, had accompanied Kuroh to the table. "Mishakuji Yukari, we need to ask you a few questions," she said straightforwardly.

"It's important," Kuroh added earnestly to soften the "unbeautiful" businesslike tone of the lieutenant. "I know you may not like the idea of helping us at all, but… Yukari-senpai, I really want to believe that even if we have different ideas about how the world should be, neither of us truly wants to deliberately destroy numerous innocent lives. I know you believed in empowering all and letting everyone reach their greatest potential – but you didn't believe in destroying all, did you?"

"This sounds serious," Yukari said a little more soberly.

"We can't be sure yet, but it could _become_ serious," Kuroh said. "Please… we need to know if, during your time in the highest ranks of Jungle, Hisui Nagare or Iwafune Tenkei ever mentioned that they had found any other source of power that was similar to the Dresden Slate."

"They did," Yukari replied so promptly that it took Kuroh and Awashima by surprise.

"They… did?" Kuroh echoed.

"Yes, but nothing ever came of it," Yukari stated. "As a backup plan in case they were unable to seize the Dresden Slate, Nagare and Iwa-san did search for similar slates. They found evidence that other such sources of power existed, and even managed through goodness only knows what means to identify the wavelength emitted by one source, but they never managed to pinpoint its physical location, though they were certain it was buried deep under the earth. Besides, it was strictly a Plan B, or even a C, because this alternative 'slate' or whatever it was didn't seem quite as powerful as the Dresden Slate, so it wasn't really an ideal option."

"I suppose information about the alternative power's existence was stored on the Jungle server?" Awashima asked.

"Naturally. But we also talked openly about it – though you know this sort of technical stuff was never my cup of tea. Nagare and Iwa-san went on at length about using the server to put out a 'call' in the form of a wavelength matching the one they had identified from this 'Slate B', as I sometimes liked to think of it. But the power didn't respond. Nagare theorised that it was asleep in the same way the Dresden Slate had slept before Adolf K. Weismann and then Kokujouji Daikaku woke it up. The Silver and Gold kings had direct access to the physical Dresden Slate, so of course they could use their science and sorcery to activate it. But Nagare and Iwa-san didn't have access to Slate B, so they couldn't do the same. Nagare also theorised that apart from direct physical contact, another thing that might wake Slate B could be a jolt from a big event, like an earthquake, say."

"Did Hisui Nagare say whether an event like the Kagutsu Crater incident might have jolted this 'Slate B' awake?" Awashima inquired. "I would think something like that would be even more jarring than an earthquake."

"Aha – as a matter of fact, Nagare did say that the Kagutsu Crater incident might have triggered the first stage of awakening of Slate B – otherwise it might not even have emitted a wavelength at all… something like that?" Yukari grinned and shrugged. "If you people are starting to ask me about this sort of thing, I'm guessing it might have reached another stage of awakening?"

"And what could have triggered that…" Kuroh began.

"Yes, Kuroh-chan – it's entirely possible that your current king's heartless destruction of the Dresden Slate may have jolted Slate B a little more awake. Of course his Sword of Damocles and our Dresden Slate cancelled each other out, which means the physical impact may not have been much – but don't you think the _aura_ reverberations would have been massive? Anyway, that's just my guess."

"And after this next stage of awakening, in theory, it might now be able to respond to the matching wavelength if someone was continuing to send one out just like Nagare used the Jungle server to send out the 'call'?" Awashima asked.

"I would imagine so. But none of this is really my area of specialisation," Yukari reminded them. "Technical things aren't beautiful at all."

"What sort of wavelength 'call' could possibly be sent out? Using what means?" Kuroh pondered.

"Kuroh-chan, I don't _know_ about such matters. But let me just say that Nagare and Iwa-san often mentioned that the way the Dresden Slate was able to make kings was to synchronise with their _minds_. So think about it – if someone wants to make contact with a similar slate of sorts, wouldn't they be able to do it best with human-brain wavelengths?"

…

"He's like a child," Dr Ozaki sighed, shaking her head. "I made him have a salad for lunch because he obviously doesn't eat enough greens, and you should have seen the face he pulled. Then he worked himself to tatters – against my orders – by alternating between helping with Dr Sakamoto's refinements to the artificial crystal formula, and ploughing through the psychokinesis data again."

Unable to keep the amused note out of his voice, Munakata said: "Now you know what we at Sceptre 4 have to deal with every day, Ozaki-sensei. But why was he going through the psychokinesis data once more?"

"He thinks he may have missed an important detail, since he had not predicted that the alterations to the programme could encourage the growth of the gliomas I've just briefed you about."

"Fushimi-kun has sound instincts. If he suspects that something is important, it often is."

"I don't doubt that. Anyway, there he is – completely worn out. You asked me to contact you directly if he ever ran himself ragged at the lab, and only on his second day here, he has done just that."

Munakata gazed down at the figure of the sleeping Fushimi, his head and arms resting on a stack of paper in front of a keyboard, the computer screen already in saver mode. Touching his shoulder lightly, the captain spoke his name: "Fushimi-kun, it's 6pm. Time to return to Tsubaki-mon."

Fushimi jerked awake, and Munakata swiftly put a restraining hand on his arm – he'd been about to go for his knives.

"Captain?" Fushimi rasped through a dry throat and blinked at him. "Why are you-?"

"And he doesn't drink enough water either," Dr Ozaki commented.

"Hidaka-kun and I have come to pick you up. We feared you would forget on purpose to send for a car – and you're not to commute alone, remember?"

"Am I a kindergartener, that you have to collect me?" Fushimi complained, removing his glasses to rub his eyes before shuffling his sheaf of papers into a neat pile.

"Well, you are as unpredictable as one, Fushimi-kun, so we want to play it safe. Come on, let's get you back to headquarters."

"Have a balanced meal for dinner, and get enough sleep tonight, Fushimi-san," Dr Ozaki ordered.

Fushimi gathered his papers and rose, then fell into step beside Munakata, who asked him: "Did you find anything you'd previously missed in that data?"

"It's… no. Well, I need to go over it again," he mumbled vaguely and sleepily.

"But not tonight, please," the doctor reminded him. "You need rest."

She walked them out of the laboratory wing, said _konbanwa_ and left them to make their way to the secured underground carpark, where Hidaka waited with an unmarked vehicle – Munakata was keeping to the rule of no one leaving HQ alone.

The captain opened the back door, ushered Fushimi in, and climbed in after him, then nodded to Hidaka to begin the drive back to Tsubaki-mon. Hidaka made no comment about the captain being the one to open the door for Fushimi, and as he drove along, he glanced in the rear-view mirror to find Fushimi glaring at him, as if challenging him to grin, or say something silly. But unlike on the island, Hidaka did nothing of the sort this time, Munakata observed. He was learning fast, which was one of the reasons the captain had picked him to drive tonight.

Fushimi glared at Hidaka a bit more before seeming to conclude that his fellow clansman wasn't going to react. Then, to Munakata's pleasure – and further amusement – Fushimi blinked sleepily a few times before removing his glasses, unbuckling his seat belt, and curling up right there on the back seat of the car with his head on Munakata's lap.

Like a child, he was asleep in two minutes.

* * *

 **Note:** Visit Anonymous Fanatic's gallery at anonfanatic dot deviantart dot com slash gallery to see all the art she has done for this story.


	15. Appearances

**Appearances**

 _Please try to remember not to fling a knife at me tomorrow morning._

That had been his request last night, but there was no telling how someone – especially _this_ particular someone – would react first thing upon waking. He had blades hidden under his mattress, after all.

It appeared, however, that he had remembered their arrangement. For when Munakata used Fushimi's key to enter his room at 6am, he received no more aggressive a welcome than a grumpy murmur from the upper bunk of the double-decker bed.

His favourite was tightly bundled up in his duvet, only that unruly mop of dark hair peeking out from one end. As Munakata locked the door from within, Fushimi lifted his head to peer at him through sleep-narrowed eyes, like an unimpressed cat, before dropping back onto his pillow and pulling his duvet even more snugly around him.

The captain slipped off his indoor shoes and walked over to the bed. He rested his sabre on the lower bunk – which was bare, of course, as it had been since Fushimi had joined Sceptre 4 and refused to share a dorm room with anyone. Munakata knew it had to do with what Fushimi had felt then was the impossibility of anyone occupying anything close to the place Yata Misaki once had in his life, but the captain never brought up that specific point. Instead, he had allowed the rest of the clan to assume that Fushimi was simply the kind of person who couldn't stand having a roommate, and that he'd got his way because the captain was wrapped around his little finger.

Some of the rumours had taken a more unpleasant slant at the time, as Munakata had not yet finished weeding out the old clansmen of Habari Jin's whom he did not wish to retain. Those who resented his brand of kingship had sneered that of course he would give his _favourite boy_ a room of his own, so he could have easier access to him at _any hour of the_ _night_.

After he had ejected the people he had no place for at Sceptre 4, the dirtier rumours had died down, though the more light-hearted ones circulated to this day. All that had something to do with why he had declined to spend last night with Fushimi, either in the latter's bedroom or his own. He had not been troubled by the rumours all this while, and neither had Fushimi – they'd both separately been somewhat amused by them – but now that Fushimi had actually accepted his advances, Munakata found himself caring about the whispers on the younger man's behalf.

He didn't want anyone to think that his third in command held the position he did in the Blue clan for any reason other than his considerable work-related skills and talents, and his unique – but strangely effective – way of managing people.

So after dinner in the mess, and hours of overtime work following updates from Awashima and Weismann about Mishakuji Yukari's revelations, he'd walked Fushimi to his room and said: _"I won't stay overnight because I don't want to rush things."_

And the other had sniped: _"Oh, did you think that what we did in your office last night wasn't rushing things?"_

 _"Hmm, as a matter of fact, no,"_ he'd said, kissing Fushimi and drawing back with a smile. _"I believe we both felt it was right at the time. But I really want to do this correctly – and well – and not have to skulk about. Can we take a few steps back and start properly?"_

 _"Whatever. If you're not staying the night, get out. I'm tired and I want to sleep,"_ Fushimi had grumbled, no doubt regretting he'd laid his head in his captain's lap in the car on the way back here earlier in the evening.

 _"I'll take this with me, then,"_ Munakata had said, lifting Fushimi's room key off the desk.

 _"Huh?"_

 _"Lock your door from inside as usual after I leave. But I'll let myself in tomorrow at six – by which time you should have had enough rest – so that I can spend a peaceful hour with you."_

Fushimi had looked for a moment as if he was contemplating calling the whole thing off, but at last he'd shrugged, muttered _"Suit yourself"_ , and seen him to the door.

So here he was now, in his full uniform, having risen at 4am and completed two hours of work in the office, standing beside the bed and letting a helpless smile steal over his lips. Because a grouchy, half-asleep, duvet-smothered Fushimi was the cutest thing he'd seen in a long while.

Munakata stepped onto the second rung of the ladder leading to the upper bunk and wished the ladder wasn't situated near the foot of the bed, because he wanted to be closer to Fushimi's face.

"I am aware that this does not compare at all with balcony-scaling, but I am doing my best with the Romeo role here, and I do wish you would bestow a more favourable look upon me," he ventured hopefully.

"And who the fuck do you think you're implying is _Juliet_?" came the disgruntled mutter from beneath the duvet.

Munakata sighed and climbed all the way up onto the mattress, insinuating himself – coat and all – into the space between the side rails and the tightly curled-up form beneath the covers. He brushed that messy fringe off the pale brow, finely arched eyebrows and pretty lashes just visible under the edge of the duvet, and kissed him on the forehead.

Removing his own spectacles and placing them carefully on the edge of the mattress against the wall, beside Fushimi's, he burrowed closer to him. He didn't try to peel off the covers or tug at the pillow, nag at him to open his eyes or talk to him. He just lay there patiently, slipping one hand under the duvet to reach the warm body beneath, while his other hand stroked the mop of dark hair – as black as his own though not as glossy, and very much softer, like a child's, really.

It took a few minutes, but eventually, Fushimi lifted one edge of the duvet to let him in. Munakata shifted beneath the covers and lay back on the pillow as Fushimi snuggled up, turning Munakata's coat collar down before tucking his head under his chin and burying his face in his cravat, then snaking his left arm around his body and slipping a leg over his thighs.

"Is it appropriate now for me to say 'Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon'?" Munakata asked with a light chuckle.

Fushimi groaned against his chest. "You are _not_ going to lie in my bed and quote Shakespeare to me…"

"'He speaks! O! Speak again, bright angel…'"

"That's it. Out – get out," Fushimi growled, trying to retract his limbs and draw his head back, only to be pulled tightly into Munakata's arms, head pressed back down to his captain's chest by a steady hand.

"I won't let myself be so easily kicked out of your bed," Munakata laughed. "Not after waiting all night to climb in."

"You could have _stayed_ in it all night if you'd wished," Fushimi grumbled, fingering the buttons on the lapels of his coat.

"I wanted to."

"Then why…?"

"Because I want to go about this the right way."

"Oh?"

"I don't want to hide you, Fushimi-kun."

The younger man lifted his head and made proper eye contact with him at last. "That's _really_ funny. I thought I was your hidden-weapon user and the joker in your pack, and aren't those usually _concealed_ -"

Munakata seized the opportunity to grab him for a kiss, but was rebuffed when he pulled away moments after their lips met.

"Are you still annoyed with me, Fushimi-kun?" he asked, concerned.

"Ugh, no – but don't kiss me – my morning breath smells awful."

"Isn't that perfectly normal?" he laughed. "I don't care if your breath smells."

"Well, _I_ do," Fushimi mumbled. But he shifted his foot around a bit near the lower half of the mattress, and came up with a sports bidon he must have tucked between the mattress and the wall. He popped the top off, chugged a generous amount of water, swirled it around in his mouth and swallowed, then drank a bit more.

"Can I kiss you now?" Munakata asked.

"Hnn," came the reluctant murmur.

He covered Fushimi's mouth with his own and savoured the taste of him, wanting familiarity with everything from the just-woken-up sourness of his breath to the heat of his tongue, his chapped lips, and the mischievous nipping of his teeth. Fushimi was holding back, though, no doubt still uncomfortable about not having brushed and gargled yet, so Munakata pressed him to the mattress, kissing him hard and deep until he gave in and kissed back more aggressively, and his hands found their way between the folds of his coat. By the time they pulled apart, Fushimi was panting a little.

"Fushimi-kun," Munakata breathed softly against his face. "I plan to wake up next to you for many mornings to come…"

Fushimi, blushing, searched him with his beautiful blue eyes, no doubt looking this hard at him because his vision wasn't the sharpest without his glasses, but also seeming to search his soul, to know if what he understood was the same as what Munakata meant.

"…so I don't care what your breath smells like when you get up. And as I said, I don't want to hide you; I want to do this properly," Munakata continued.

"What exactly are you thinking of doing… about us?"

"I wish to find the right time and way to be open with our clansmen about my relationship with you, without causing anyone to believe that you will be unfairly favoured at work. Just before all this happened, I also assured Lieutenant Awashima that I was not sleeping with you, and I wish at least to keep to the letter of that. So for now, I want to maintain the appearance of propriety."

"Which involves stepping fully dressed into my room at a decent hour of the morning instead of slipping out half-dressed and at an indecent time, no doubt," Fushimi rolled his eyes before adding with a sardonic snicker: "Well, I _do_ always like a man in uniform..."

"Ah, yes," Munakata said brightly. "There was this intriguing concept of a 'walk of shame' that Awashima-kun explained to me the other day…"

Fushimi groaned again: "Aaargh, no, you are _not_ going to lie in my bed and talk about Lieutenant Awashima educating you about walks of shame…"

"Very well," Munakata acceded with some amusement. "Then may I just lie here and hold you?"

"Sounds good to me," Fushimi yawned. "I've never been a morning person, so this is a fine way to wake up."

Their hands didn't wander today, and they didn't work each other up, because it felt good to be quiet and warm together, Fushimi nuzzling his captain's jawline and Munakata affectionately stroking Fushimi's back and kissing his hair. They murmured about little nothings – how smooth Fushimi's face was even without having to shave, the soothing rise and fall of Munakata's chest under Fushimi's head, the enticing scent of Fushimi's skin.

They wanted all their mornings to be peaceful like this, although with the rush of work and life and the urgency of criminal Strains to catch, the wish seemed little more than a waking dream.

…

They wanted to do this as efficiently as possible. So Tsunado and Yano, the two swordsmen from Squad 3 who were due to take over from Akiyama and Benzai at the Medical University Hospital this morning, would drive Fushimi-san there, then Akiyama and Benzai would use the same car to drive Fushimi-san to the Nanakamado hospital and research facility.

But Fushimi-san had requested an earlier start time so that he would be able to talk to Yata Misaki for a while, as well as run another errand before heading for Nanakamado. So Akiyama and Benzai handed over their guard duties to the two swordsmen and waited outside Yata's room.

They'd already met Kamamoto Rikio along the corridor, and seen Kushina Anna in the room, resting on the couch with Yata. When Fushimi-san went in, he had - after some persuasion - joined the two smaller figures on the couch, squeezing in beside them. Benzai hadn't meant to spy on them, but they hadn't closed the door, and he could hear the soft conversation even though they weren't in his line of sight.

"Here, Saruhiko – there's room," came the Red king's gentle voice.

"There's no need for us to squeeze…" came the predictable protest from their third in command.

"Oh, come on – when was the last time big kids like you and me got into a puppy pile with Anna?" Yata laughed.

"This isn't a 'puppy pile' by any stretch of the imagination," Fushimi-san had scoffed, but to Benzai's amusement – and Yata's, judging by the snort he heard – his Sceptre 4 superior squeezed in there anyway, with some huffing from the incapacitated Red clansman and some rustling of frilly fabric from the Red king's dress.

"The doctors say I can be discharged tomorrow if I'm careful with my hand," Yata said.

"Are you going to your parents'?" Fushimi-san asked.

"Just for a few days – school's starting, and Kaa-chan will be really busy getting Megumi there and back on time, and I just don't want to burden her."

"Remember that you can't stay at the bar, or at Kusanagi-san's place," Fushimi-san reminded Yata sternly. "The amount of cigarette smoke-saturated materials there will kill the capillaries in your left hand faster than you can cough."

"I know, I know – the doctors already reminded me – no hanging around anyone who's smoking, and no staying in a room that people regularly smoke in, just to be careful until this hand heals completely."

"And no going back to your apartment either – those stairs will kill you and whoever needs to help you get up and down them."

"I know," Yata sighed.

"I'll visit you at your parents' if I can manage it," Fushimi-san said.

"I'd like that."

They were quiet for a while, then to Benzai's amazement, he heard Fushimi-san say softly: "Anna… I haven't said it yet… but thanks – thanks for saving Misaki."

"Saruhiko… you'd have done the same, wouldn't you?" was Anna's gentle response.

"Yeah."

"So you don't have to say thanks, because we understand each other."

"Thanks anyway."

"Oh shut up, both of you – you're going to make me cry," came the sniffle from Yata.

It was a sweet moment involving the dour Fushimi-san that Benzai never thought he would witness (or rather, overhear). And he was still feeling somewhat warm and fuzzy about it when Fushimi-san was ready to leave for his unspecified "errand" before going to Nanakamado.

That was when Benzai – and Akiyama too – grew a little confused, because Fushimi-san's errand looked, well, highly unbecoming, to say the least.

He directed them to drive to a neighbourhood on the edge of Shizume City, not very far from Homra, but practically on the border of Tsubaki-mon. The better part of Shizume City, in other words. Which was all well and good, until they saw the person he was meeting.

A beautiful young woman who didn't look like she was here to give him work information or be investigated for Strain-related activity. Just a lovely vision in a simple pink dress with a white shoulder bag, who bowed to him, smiled confidently and, to their astonishment, slid her arm through his and asked: "Are you the one who called me…?"

Fushimi-san had turned back to them and said: "I'll need half an hour."

Then he and the woman had disappeared into an apartment block, and they'd come back down 30 minutes later, Fushimi buttoning up his waistcoat as he walked away from her and towards the car.

They knew better than to question their superior, and they were all quiet for the remainder of the drive – a short one, thankfully – to Nanakamado. But as they left Fushimi-san at the research facility and drove back towards HQ, they wondered what to say if the captain should specifically ask them what sort of errand Fushimi-kun had needed to run before going to the lab.

…

 _"You're so good with computers, Nagato-kun!"_

 _"Wow, you're so brilliant with these programmes!"_

 _"Ooh, you're a technical genius, Nagato-kun!"_

The voices echoed in his head sometimes, in those dreams that weren't apocalyptic, and occasionally, when he still felt like himself. There weren't many such moments now, but even when lucidity was rare and insignificant memories rarer, he continued, after so long, to feel shame at having been thus praised.

As well-meaning as those family members and friends had been, they'd all been blind. The truth was that he wasn't really good with computers or technical stuff. He was only good at hiding. Digital devices were just a way for him to stay concealed. In reality, he was clumsy with them, awkward – his programmes had no beauty and no elegance, unlike the amazingly perfect ones he saw true geniuses write. All he was was someone who knew how to hide himself anywhere, and who had pounced on computer systems as a way to let him do exactly that – and remotely, to boot. But he'd never mastered them; he felt like a fraud.

All he knew was that when he went online, or into an individual device, or a server, like any other advanced hacker or thief, he could see how to get into it and around its defences and back out. But unlike most hackers, he had an inborn ability that told him without his understanding how: _Ah, I can hide here_ , or _I can draw this out of there without leaving footprints if I do it this way_ , and _I can suck this out of here like a parasite if I go this way and that way and the host won't ever see me_.

And unlike these trained and talented ones who glided beautifully through the maze of defences in a system with impressive skill, knowing precisely what they were doing to avoid triggering alarms or touching the "walls" of the figurative maze, he was like a cheating mole who had learnt how to get from one point to another and back by tunnelling beneath the maze, sniffing and digging this way and that, going left and right, backwards and forwards, until he got what he wanted merely because of the concealment powers he had been born with.

Only a fraud.

So even when his parents and relatives began to praise him for his apparent skill with coding and troubleshooting and programming, and even when he seemed quietly confident in school, what people saw was only the shell he hid behind. Inside, he was awkward and imperfect, just like his messy programmes.

Then Mirai happened to him. He'd walked into the living room of some family or other for the first time one day, peering out from behind his mum and dad, and there she was crouching in a corner – Yamakawa Mirai – hiding from the world, just like him. Except she was hiding openly while he was hiding secretly. She lifted her beautiful, slate-grey eyes to his dull brown ones, and she saw him – she _saw_ him in all his awkwardness and plainness and clumsiness and embraced him exactly as he was, with all her heart.

She knew he was ugly and imperfect, and she still loved him for everything that he was and was not, and somehow made him feel flawless.

 _Hideyoshi-kun, this is your way of programming, isn't it? It's the way you do it best, right? Then it's perfect for you. It's perfect because it's done by you._

They'd hide together in their little bubble, sheltering away from the terrifying world they didn't fit into, and he'd show her code he'd written, games he'd programmed, fun things they could do together as kids without having to interact directly with anyone beyond their small circle of close friends and family.

 _"But it's untidy, Mirai-chan – it's so roughly made."_

 _"Do you want to learn to do it differently, Hideyoshi-kun?"_

 _"Yes and no – I could relearn, I think, but I couldn't hide so well without the clumsiness and mess… things that are too perfect – they're easy to notice, you know."_

 _"So this works for you? And if you didn't compare yourself with others, you wouldn't mind any of it?"_

 _"I suppose so."_

 _"Then it's perfect, Hideyoshi-kun."_

When he discovered the wealth of treasures on Jungle's server, and how his ability to hide in his own clumsy way made him as good as invisible to the rumoured Green king who ruled it, he started stealing useful things from it. Especially crucial was the Green aura – he could steal that precious, _precious_ aura to help Mirai boost her powers, using the imperfect programmes he had created that somehow slipped like camouflage into the chaos of the Jungle server, and danced like furies behind the king's back before returning to his waiting hands with valuable sustenance for the girl he loved.

His abilities to hide and tunnel and steal had shown him exactly how he could filch and squirrel away these powers, letting him write programmes that adapted the challenges and games posed by Jungle into ones that would draw out the aura when Mirai played the simple little games he had transformed the challenges into for her.

With his strength and Jungle's stolen powers, she could shield herself from the horrible noises and smells and blinding lights and burning chemicals all around that distressed her so. As he watched her grow calmer, his heart grew lighter and more confident. He wanted to brave the world for her so he could keep bringing back new treasures to lay at her feet. He continued going to school to learn things that would help them both – including focusing on the computer club's activities to hone his formal skills and use them to back up his innate ones. He went to university to do computer studies for the same purpose. He still couldn't write elegant code – it was so much faster to use his own ways and conceal the true methods from others – but he was getting better at it. And he was sure he would one day be able to set Mirai up for life with all the resources she needed to keep herself screened off from the world for as long as she wanted to.

But before he was ready, before he could build Mirai a sanctuary to roam and play and love in, callous people pulled the rug out from under their feet. Thoughtless people with no concept of the lifeline these powers – both inborn and borrowed – were to the beautiful young woman he loved. Wanting to achieve their own incomprehensible aims, they destroyed the source of the aura she had relied on.

 _Mirai… come back…!_

Through connections like Yumi-chan – whose parents had registered her with the authorities – as well as through his visits to the Jungle server, he had learnt long ago that people like himself and Mirai and their closest friends were "Strains" who had become the way they were because of something called "the Dresden Slate". He'd learnt there were groups called "clans", ruled by "kings" also created by the slate. He'd found out the names and personal details of every one of these kings and clanspeople, thinking it would be useful information one day.

And it was. When these clans – Silver and Blue and Red and, by tacit consent, Gold – fought the Green king and destroyed the Dresden Slate, he knew exactly whom to blame and whom to take revenge on.

For Mirai.

 _Mirai…_

He dug up the beautifully designed programme he had once found tucked away deep inside an abandoned corner of the Jungle server, with notes outlining how it was dangerous because it would make its users insane. He'd found other notes too, written in a different style, showing how further changes to the programme could make it even more effective but far more dangerous. Oh… so it could impart powers of a sort, could it? Maybe he could tweak it to make it work for her… but no, it couldn't be used that way, because it didn't give powers to people like them – only to ordinary humans…

 _Mirai, please don't turn away…_

… then he dug up another thing he had found long ago on Jungle, data about a special wavelength that could "speak" to something that was like and yet not like the Dresden Slate. He needed this thing now that there was no more Dresden Slate. He needed it so badly… Mirai was running out of time… she was starting to go mad again…

 _Mirai, I love you… we can get through this together… let me help you – please – there's a way – I'll find it…_

The Jungle server had records showing how the Green king had tried to put out a "call" to this sleeping second slate, using an artificially generated wavelength that the server transmitted into the ground, where the slate was thought to be buried. But the records showed no response. A document in the same folder proposed that because the Dresden Slate made kings by synchronising with their minds, they should try waking up this second slate using wavelengths of the mind instead, but more research was needed to show how to shape these wavelengths in a human brain.

 _Mirai… please… where are you?… oh no, no, Mirai… no…_

He also found a set of studies which looked like it had been stolen from the Gold clan, stuck in yet another untidy corner of Jungle's network. It detailed how resilient the minds of clansmen and Strains were, because the Dresden Slate's aura had shaped their brains' chemical and psychic make-up. Trauma and imbalances that would damage ordinary human minds would not provoke the same damage in a clansman or Strain. The study then asked why the most recent Colourless king, the fox, seemed to have gone mad if those touched by the Dresden Slate were supposed to be resistant to mental disintegration. The paper ended with a hypothesis that the fox had succumbed to insanity because it had spent too much time occupying the bodies and brains of those without aura-generated resilience, and therefore could not save itself from the mental ill-effects of constant switching of its identity. An appendix to the paper detailed the differences between aura-touched and normal human minds.

But…

 _Too late, all was lost. Mirai was gone forever. And all he had now was to hate these people who had destroyed all hope for her._

Lost forever.

Then fate lit his new path of hatred, because he suddenly saw, with all the information he had, that the first stolen programme was so elegant and neat and perfect that it was an infinitely adaptable one which he could modify to shape brainwaves differently, depending on what he added to it. And he could modify it so it could shape brainwaves until they were the right wavelength to "speak" to this second slate. The Green king had been pointlessly pumping the digital frequency into the ground as if broadcasting the call on a matching frequency when, in fact, all that was needed was for a human mind to put out a matching wavelength, and it would be like a two-way radio connection that could wake the second slate up and receive communication.

He realised something else too, based partly on the programme itself, and partly on the knowledge he had obtained from the stolen Gold-clan document: the programme was meant to impart telekinetic powers to human minds, but would not do so for aura-touched minds; however, just because a Strain wouldn't derive telekinetic powers from it, it didn't mean that the programme wouldn't affect the Strain's wavelengths. It would – just not in an obvious way. And he could tweak it to make his _own_ mind put out the correct frequency to "speak" to the second slate.

The revelation came too late for Mirai, but not too late for his hatred and revenge.

But how could he check how well his theory would work? Oh, yes, of course – he would put the programme out there with a few further adaptations so it would shape the minds of susceptible humans whom he would prompt through messages embedded in the games to make trouble for his enemy clans – and he would know it was working once trouble came to the clans, which he would monitor remotely by watching their computer systems.

People fell for it. It worked. He saw the reports on the Blue clan's and Gold clan's systems about the damage done telekinetically by non-Strains, and he knew now that he could do it. The programme was too harsh for ordinary human minds – it would harm their brains in nasty ways – but that was just too bad. Mirai, whose life humans had made a misery, was gone, and people had to pay for that.

So he adapted the programme specifically for himself, and began to use it. As his mind was shaped by it, he began to feel a "connection" to the power whose spiritual wavelength his psychic brainwaves now matched. This godlike power was full of rage, like him. It hated him, but it would use him too to express its hatred for the inferior life of this world, until everything was gone…

He could still think clearly like this in his lucid moments, and remember how he had got here. But these lucid moments were becoming fewer. He would lose himself too if this went on, but it didn't matter. Everything would end. _It_ would kill them all. Everything would turn to dust.

Everything.

Dust.

A god of wrath.

So much hatred…

So much anger…

He was changing into… slowly – no, but yes, very slowly – he couldn't remember now… that thing was taking over… the god of wrath… he couldn't… wait… what was it? What was this? What was he becoming?

 _Mirai, I'll find you soon…_

… what was it?

It didn't speak in words, but in rage. He could feel its hatred, matching his own, for the filthy beings of this world that swarmed all over the planet. He could sense that it had been alive long ago when no filthy mortals crawled all over the land and sea and sky. It wanted to exterminate them all.

It would use him for now to wake up more and stabilise its consciousness, and it would change his nature slowly, slowly, as it did so, and hide him so it could continue using him undisturbed, but it would exterminate him too in the end, for he too was a filthy mortal.

That was just as well.

It didn't matter.

Everything would end.

So much hatred…

…

"What does this part do, then?" Fushimi asked Dr Sakamoto's associate, Dr Eto, the researcher specifically handling the analysis of the brain-training app. "It's in the same category as the other parts marked in yellow, right?"

"Okay – I've marked out all the original, untouched parts of your programme in blue, and they form the majority of the app games, as you can see," Dr Eto explained. "These sections I've marked in yellow are the ones that, as far as we can tell, were specifically added to the programme for the purpose of speeding up its effects. Remove them, and the programme still does what it does, only more slowly. These other sections in pink are what appear to be add-ons to the original programme to make it irrelevant to clansmen and Strains."

"I don't understand. The programme was always going to be irrelevant to anyone who was ever affected by the Dresden Slate, anyway – it doesn't work for us," Fushimi said.

"Yes, but it doesn't work for us only in the sense that we don't obtain any extra powers from it; however, it still shapes the frequencies of our brains in the same way it shapes the brain wavelengths of regular humans," Dr Eto replied. "It doesn't harm us the way it harms regular humans, of course – not with how our clan and Strain auras have permanently altered the resilience of our minds – we simply wouldn't release that amount of dopamine or have our brains cells damaged. These additions to the programme merely nullify even such effects for aura-affected brains – this person behind the app really has detailed info on the differences between normal human and aura-honed minds."

"Then in theory, I could remove these additions and replace them with others that would make the programme specifically relevant to clansmen and Strains?"

"In theory, yes. In fact, I've reverse-engineered the nullifications to see what they would be if they were to be made relevant to us rather than normal humans. Here's my data."

Fushimi glanced over the printouts Dr Eto gave him, then looked back at the app-programme data. "What about these few portions in orange, then?"

"These are the most interesting sections. There isn't a specific purpose to them that we can determine. They simply seem to be meant to shape the brainwaves of the subjects to a specific frequency that has absolutely nothing to do with the psychokinesis – and yet, there's something missing."

"What do you mean?"

"We haven't fully investigated this detail yet, but it just looks incomplete to those of us who generally research brain frequencies and their effects – it's like this part of the programme pushes the brain towards reaching some frequency or other, but cuts off before it gets there. We suspect it's this add-on that could have taxed the brains of our four psychokinesis patients so much that the cells became damaged and formed tumours. And we suspect that if this add-on hadn't been left incomplete, the tumours could have been much worse."

"I think…" Fushimi murmured as he stared at the data before him. "I think I'm starting to figure out what Nagato has been trying to do…"


	16. Connections

**Connections**

"Kuroh, Neko, ready over there?" Weismann asked, waving at the videoconferencing screen.

"Yesss!" Neko grinned back at him.

" _Keep your clothes on at all times_!' Kuroh warned her in a whisper that came through the speakers much more clearly than he'd probably intended it to.

Other figures were coming into view on the screen – Awashima, Enomoto, two masked Gold clansmen, and Hieda.

"We've been ready for _aaages_!" Neko announced sunnily. "We should ask if _you_ guys are ready over there!"

"We're ready," Fushimi muttered, looking up from his laptop at the video camera. "Remember what we discussed last evening. Follow Enomoto's instructions if you forget."

"I won't forget, _iyamegane_!" Neko stuck her tongue out at him. "Hi, Anna!"

Beside Fushimi stood Munakata, Kamo and Doumyouji from the Blue clan, Anna, Kusanagi and Kamamoto from the Red clan, Weismann representing the Silver clan, and several Gold clan researchers and masked elites, including the elder clansman.

It was the first meeting involving representatives from the four allied clans. Fushimi and the Gold researchers were to demonstrate how the artificial crystals and other materials developed by the Timeless Palace might help them catch Nagato Hideyoshi as well as ensure the continued aura-wielding ability of the clans.

The side venue was the dorm at Ashinaka High, but the main venue was the research facility at Nanakamado. This had given Kusanagi pause; even though it was a new building, Anna still had bad memories of the place from the time Mizuchi Koushi had put her through so much torture after murdering her parents. But Anna had bravely said that many things had changed, and she was no longer afraid. _"The old ghosts are gone, Izumo – Mizuchi is gone for me, just like that bad ghost is gone for Saruhiko."_

Kusanagi hadn't asked what bad ghost it was that had gone away from Fushimi – he knew from her cryptic smile that she wasn't going to elaborate, though he had an inkling that it had to do with Fushimi's disturbed state in the period just before he'd left Homra. Whatever it was, he was glad that both the kids were overcoming their nightmares – Anna and, it seemed, Fushimi too, had gone through enough hell in their young lives to last them forever.

"All right," said Dr Sakamoto, the Gold researcher heading the artificial-aura project. "This meeting has a twofold purpose – we will be laying out a possible approach for apprehending the culprit behind the psychokinesis apps, and also demonstrating how far we have progressed with the artificial aura. This demonstration and videoconferencing are being done on closed systems with no external links, to prevent spying through our networks. Fushimi-san, please take it from here."

Fushimi sighed before beginning his part of the demonstration in a half-businesslike, half-bored tone. "I'll give you a brief rundown of the artificial aura project so you'll know the end result we're aiming for. The first stage saw the creation of crystals emitting a wavelength and aura identical to the Dresden Slate's," he said, indicating a bluish-grey crystal Dr Sakamoto was holding up. "It could generate forcefields as defensive shields, but couldn't be modulated much. It definitely could not infuse computer programmes with aura. Right, Neko – start running your programme like I showed you."

On the videoconferencing display, they could see Enomoto and one of the Rabbits guiding Neko as she applied her Strain powers to a programme Fushimi had prepared for her.

"Yup yup yup, it's happening!" she chirped. "I'm hiding the programme like you taught me yesterday, the way I can hide Shiro and Kuroh and Hieda when baaad people are chasing us!"

"Yes, yes, very good," Fushimi muttered with complete insincerity and an edge of impatience. "Now that Neko has uploaded her programme to our closed network, and used her Strain abilities to conceal it – something she actually managed to do after some tutoring from us – we can see from our monitors that it can't be found through normal means."

The observers at Nanakamado looked at the computers used by Fushimi and two Gold clansmen showing what programmes were in the closed system. The Gold clansmen shook their heads after conducting searches, confirming that Neko's programme could not be detected.

Fushimi continued: "The first-generation crystal we just showed you could not be used in such situations. We couldn't infuse its aura into anything other than electrical devices to be switched on and off, and certainly could not put it into a computer system the way the Green king used his aura when he ran the Jungle server. But the Gold clan improved the crystals to these second-generation ones."

Dr Sakamoto held up another stone, a white one.

"Can that catch me?" Neko grinned mischievously.

"These second-generation crystals produce aura in response to clansmen's brain frequencies, and to some extent, they can be used like clan aura," Fushimi said, taking the crystal from Dr Sakamoto and showing, through the glow suffusing his arm, how he could trigger aura by holding the crystal. "With training, anyone who has wielded clan powers for a significant amount of time can use the artificial aura from this crystal. Depending on your innate abilities as well as your training, you may be able to channel it into weapons like Captain Munakata and I did against the gunman on the school island. Or, as in this case, you may be able to use it in a programme."

Tucking the crystal into his sleeve to keep it in contact with his skin, Fushimi channelled the aura through his hands into the laptop he was using, and into the search he was running. With the aura infusing his programme, he found Neko's hidden one, and even used it to run a trace that pinpointed the physical location of her computer.

"He's found you, Neko," Weismann waved into the video camera.

"Boo hiss!" Neko pouted.

"But it has its limitations," Fushimi continued. "We've found it very hard to make it work with more specialised applications. Take, as an example, a programme I developed last year. It was something I created to act like a virtual version of my throwing knives. As most of you know, one of my specialised aura-driven abilities was the forming of a barrier to other clansmen's powers. I mostly expressed this through my knives. For instance, just after the resolution of the incident in which Anna was kidnapped by Jungle, I used that ability to pin Hirasaka Douhan in place – blocking her powers long enough to arrest her before she could escape through a wall. I created this programme as a way for me to express this ability online, and mimic what the Green king had done to me once – use aura online to affect another party in the real world. The idea was to enable me to 'pin' another person in place through a network, trapping him there long enough to send out a team to apprehend him in the flesh. Back then, initial tests using my clan aura showed it could work; I scared off a couple of would-be Strain hackers with it. But it needed much more improvement, so I never put it to use in major real-life situations. The Dresden Slate was destroyed soon after, and I couldn't use it again without clan aura. My recent attempt to apply the artificial aura to it using the second-generation crystal met with only limited success, as I will now demonstrate."

Fushimi ran the "pinning" programme, infused it with the artificial aura, and the next thing everyone knew was that Neko had leapt back from the videoconferencing screen in alarm, hissing loudly before turning into a kitten with a spitting "pop" of Strain aura.

"Ahh… sorry about that," Kuroh said into the camera. He turned his back briefly to talk to Neko, who had apparently reverted to human form but was hiding under the bed in the dorm room, before looking back into the camera and explaining: "Neko says _iyamegane_ … sorry, I mean Fushimi-san… sent a burst of aura that almost grabbed her... erm… her left breast…?"

"Fushimi?" Kusanagi raised an eyebrow.

At the same time, Munakata spoke in an amused tone: "Fushimi-kun. Really?"

"I wasn't aiming for any specific part of her," Fushimi muttered.

"Pervert _iyamegane_!" Neko snapped off-screen.

"I wasn't trying to molest you!" Fushimi retorted childishly, pulling the crystal out of his sleeve and returning it to Dr Sakamoto. "Anyway, that's the limit of this crystal. It doesn't do a very good or accurate job with these more complex applications. But the researchers are working on a third-generation crystal which is customised to individual clansmen's unique brainwave patterns."

"Unfortunately, we are facing more hurdles than we anticipated," Dr Sakamoto added. "The fully customised crystals are not merely a matter of upgrading the second-generation ones. It is exponentially harder and much more costly to grow crystals that respond to individual brainwave patterns than to grow those that respond to brainwave patterns common to all users of aura from the Dresden Slate. Thus far, we have grown a few that are currently only partially customised to our first batch of test subjects. This crystal is Fushimi-san's."

Dr Sakamoto handed Fushimi a flattish white stone, which he put up his sleeve in place of the second-generation crystal.

"Partially complete or not, it performs quite a bit better than the second-generation one," Fushimi said. "Oi, Neko, get back to your laptop."

A wary-looking human Neko – fully clothed, thankfully – crept back towards the screen, the ends of her long hair poking out in all directions in a clear expression of how startled she had been. " _Iyamegane_ didn't warn Neko he would do such a nasty thing," she sulked.

"For the last time, I wasn't aiming to grab your breasts," Fushimi said, equally sulkily. "Here's the final stage of our demonstration. Keep operating your programme like Enomoto shows you, and keep applying your perception-interference powers to hide it – and your location."

Once again, Neko's programme disappeared from the systems even as the Gold clansmen searched for it on their screens.

"The good thing about this more customised crystal is that the aura it imparts allows enough fine-tuning and advanced-level work to not only infuse a programme with aura, but even channel the qualities of other materials through the programme."

"Meaning?" Kusanagi enquired.

"See this?" Fushimi held up a bottle of liquid. "It's Strain-inhibiting material, the same we've distributed to all of you in the kits. With the customised crystal and my specialised skills, I can infuse my pinning programme with the aura as well as this substance, so…"

Fushimi sprayed the liquid over one hand, fused it with his enhanced aura, ran his programmes, pinpointed Neko's location, and used the aura to carry the Strain-inhibitor through the network.

Suddenly, Neko was screeching and hissing: "Neko can't get away! Neko can't turn into a neko! _Iyamegane_! Let go!"

Fushimi concentrated hard to hold on to her, but in about 30 seconds, she had wriggled free and gone "pop" back into cat form, all her fur standing on end.

"That is the limitation of the third-generation crystal until it can be fully customised," Fushimi sighed. "Yes, it can do the job a lot better – Neko couldn't use her Strain abilities or even move from the computer while I had her pinned there – but it doesn't last long. We'll need to fully customise these things before we can use them to our full capabilities. There's little use in asking one of our Strain allies who still has his or her powers to use this method of catching Nagato, because the Strain-inhibitors will weaken his or her own powers too – even if it's someone as strong as Anna. If we let a person like Nagato slip out of our grasp in a failed attempt to arrest him, we may never catch him again. But right now, an even bigger issue than this is that Nagato has not re-uploaded his app since we blocked it on the online stores. I've set alerts for any programme with the essential signature of this app, but nothing has turned up. And if we can't catch him uploading a programme, we can't use this method to apprehend him."

"Surely there are ways to lure him online?" Kuroh asked through the videoconferencing connection. "Even with his powers of concealment, if we _know_ he's there because we've laid out an invitation he can't resist, we _can_ still catch him, can't we?"

"We can – but we're in a chicken-and-egg situation at the moment, as luring him online will be useless if we can't get the full power we need from these crystals to catch him," Fushimi explained.

"Then we need to develop these third-generation crystals more," Weismann underscored the point.

"It's taking longer than expected to customise them for those whose brainwave signatures we have scanned, so how much longer will it take to brain-scan every member of our clans and grow each one a crystal?" Dr Sakamoto lamented. "We _have_ discovered that we can vastly improve the performance of the partially customised stones by using them together with the second-generation crystals – the latter appears to have an amplifying effect on the former. However, our initial tests last night on two of our clansmen showed that attempting to resonate with two different generations of crystals at once places too great a psychic load on the brain – _even_ our resilient aura-exposed brains. Our testers suffered no permanent harm, fortunately; but after trying it out for about 20 minutes, they were both so mentally and physically drained that we stopped the test. They're still sleeping the effects off – that's how much it taxed them. You can imagine what it would be like to do this for longer than that."

"So the safest and only ethical course of action for now would be to continue developing the customised crystals," Munakata observed.

"That is correct."

"Then let's keep working on it," Weismann said. "Through Anna-chan, we have learnt that this other god who is waking up was not on good terms with the god and demon from the Dresden Slate. With Nagato apparently in communication with this power, which could be hostile to us once it awakens, we don't know how long he will remain untransformed – the Strain-inhibitors may soon not work on him. Just because this other god seems to be of the same kind as the god from our slate, the powers it imparts may not necessarily be similar – besides, the aura from the Dresden Slate is like no other, because it originates from a god and demon fused together. Our clan powers were utterly unique."

"Also, what Fushimi-san realised yesterday when he re-examined the data from the app gives us further cause for concern," said the elder Gold clansman. "Nagato appears to know the frequency this other god is emitting from wherever it sleeps – something we do not know yet. He has almost certainly shaped his own mind using the modified psychokinesis training to emit the same psychic wavelength to synchronise with this god. If our clans' experiences with the Dresden Slate were that it made kings by synchronising with the minds of selected individuals, there is a danger that if this god awakens further, it may make its own 'king' of Nagato and anyone else whose mind it synchronises with. Facing hostile superpowered kings bent, in all likelihood, on destruction, is a situation we are currently poorly equipped to cope with. Countless lives would be lost, and not just our own."

"The powers from the slate have agreed to help us if that happens," Anna said.

"We appreciate their offer, Red king," the elder clansman said. "However, Captain Munakata is not wrong to have opined, in his report to us, that we cannot be certain how reliable or consistent this help will be. We need to have certainty in our powers in any battle. Also, speaking as one who has lived many years, I cannot imagine how unfair it was to the powers from the slate to have been trapped and their strength made use of against their will for so many aeons. I would prefer to rely first on our manmade substances to generate aura before turning to the powers who have only just been freed."

"Then the Gold clan will continue to work on fully customising the crystals, while the Red and Silver clans work on their contacts to learn if anyone can lead them to Nagato. At the same time, the Blue clan will keep searching through official channels," Munakata stated.

"That appears to be the best course for now," Weismann agreed.

"In the meantime, I'd like members of the various clans to come in to our labs in small groups at scheduled times, to learn how to resonate with the second-generation crystals,'" said Dr Sakamoto. "Against these foreseeable upcoming dangers, some powers will be better than none. Mind you, not everyone will find it as easy as Fushimi-san and Captain Munakata did to resonate with it…"

Fushimi had been listening to Dr Sakamoto until something else caught his attention – a masked Rabbit stepping into the lab to speak quietly to Dr Ozaki. The name "Muruta" reached his ears. As Dr Ozaki hurried out of the lab after the Rabbit, Fushimi rose, mumbled "Excuse me" to the people near him – Munakata was engaged in conversation with Weismann by now – and went after her.

…

"Ozaki-sensei," he called out along the corridor. "Has something happened to Muruta Kazu?"

"He's rambling and hallucinating again," she said with a frown. "He's not improving despite the medication – in fact, he seems slightly worse."

"May I accompany you? There's a theory I need to check with regard to the app."

"Will you need to speak to him? Because I don't think he's in any condition to be questioned," she said.

"I won't attempt to interact with him unless he calms down," he promised.

"All right, but don't get in my way," she warned.

They hurried to the hospital half of the facility, where the doctor and four other medical staff entered a heavily secured and padded room bare of furniture, with only a blanket on the cushioned floor.

Fushimi was asked to stand just inside the room while Dr Ozaki examined Muruta as he was held down by her team. She sedated him, much as she had that day on the street in Shizume City after he had attacked Misaki and Anna, except that she didn't render him comatose. He remained conscious, calming down slightly after several minutes.

"Muruta-san, do you know who I am?" Dr Ozaki asked.

He nodded.

"Did you see or hear something that upset you?" she asked.

"…angry… broken… the ground… rivers of fire…" were the slurred words Fushimi caught.

"Muruta-san, you're safe. Nothing is breaking here," Dr Ozaki assured him.

"Not here… everywhere… angry…" he mumbled.

He was quieter now, so two of the team who had helped hold him down stood back to give the doctor space. Fushimi leaned over to the one holding a paper folder and asked softly: "Is that Muruta's medical file?"

The assistant nodded.

"Please find an opportunity to ask Ozaki-sensei if I may look at it," Fushimi requested.

The man waited quietly for a couple of minutes until the doctor turned to speak to another assistant, indicating that it was all right to talk to her. He conveyed Fushimi's request, and Dr Ozaki nodded after giving Fushimi a curious glance.

Fushimi looked through the file, paying particular attention to the notes about the patient's normal activities. He also looked at the summary of interviews with Muruta's family members about his usual personality and behaviour. He sounded nothing like the crazed man who had tried to kill Misaki and Anna; apparently, he was jovial, hardworking and enthusiastic about his hobbies – making craft beer, watching movies, playing online games and listening to music. Searching the folder for the detailed notes from these interviews, Fushimi found one from Muruta's brother and another from a close friend, both specifying that the kinds of music Muruta liked were the niche sort, including more obscure Noh music, black MIDI and bitpop.

Fushimi made the connection his mind had already been straining towards yesterday when, with the help of the app analyst, he had concluded that Nagato was using the modified games to make his own brain emit a wavelength matching that of the "new power" Mishakuji Yukari and Anna had spoken of.

As the analyst had revealed yesterday, Nagato's app had an incomplete sequence of training that cut off before reaching what would seem to the analyst to be completion. Clearly, Nagato had left it incomplete because he didn't want anyone else to connect with the other slate – the other god – before he did.

But somehow, through other means that were most likely accidental, Muruta had completed the sequence. His mind was now possibly partially synced with the other slate, and perhaps with Nagato as a consequence. That was why he wasn't getting better like the other psychokinesis patients. His years of listening to the niche music he enjoyed may have inadvertently shaped his mind to emit certain frequencies, and when he'd started using the brain-training app, whatever wavelengths his mind were previously shaped to may have been the very thing that accidentally closed the loop of training Nagato had not wanted anyone else to achieve.

Even though Muruta had stopped playing the games, that partial synchronisation had been enough to grip him and not let him go…

Speculation. Pure speculation on Fushimi's part. But possible. Especially considering what Muruta was muttering about anger and destruction. Hadn't Nitta Yumi said that Nagato had told her the new power he was awakening would kill many more people besides those responsible for Yamakawa Mirai's death?

"Sensei…?" Muruta was murmuring, staring closely at the doctor. "He's going to finish the job I didn't… the other one too he didn't finish… he'll hurt the ones he cares about…"

Something clicked in Fushimi's mind, chilling him to the bone.

"Ozaki-sensei," Fushimi said urgently, ignoring her look of disapproval at the volume of his voice, which she obviously feared would agitate Muruta. "Ozaki-sensei, this is an emergency – please!"

Reluctantly she left Muruta in the hands of her assistants and stepped aside with Fushimi, who said to her in a rush: "Ozaki-sensei, I think Muruta has accidentally synced with Nagato and the other power – which means he could also convey information _back_ to them, so don't let him overhear anything material to our research and this case. What he's just said about Nagato wanting to finish the job he didn't finish tells me Nagato has sent someone after Yata Misaki, and possibly after Captain Munakata again. So please keep your phone on – I may call you for updates on anything else he's saying. I have to go!"

"Fushimi-san…?" Dr Ozaki gasped, stunned, but not stopping him as he raced towards the lab, getting on his phone at the same time.

"Akiyama!" Fushimi snapped into the phone. "We have an emergency! Nagato may have hired another killer to finish off Yata Misaki, who has just been discharged from hospital and is at his parents' home. Which members of Sceptre 4 and Homra are with him? …Ishizuka and Jinnai, Chitose and Dewa? Okay. Dispatch two more armed units, with enhanced shields, to the Yata household in Shizume, Yoyogi sanchome – _now_! … Nagato may also have sent someone after Captain Munakata again, but at least the captain's with us, so we'll watch him…"

…

Thank goodness they didn't have to climb a flight of stairs to get into the house, Yata thought, as Chitose and Dewa helped him into the living room while his mother, Minoru and Megumi bustled past them carrying a load of things – his medication, bandages, splints, a basket of fruit from the hospital staff, his slippers, clothes Kamamoto had got from his apartment… damn, why was there so much stuff?

It was the last weekend before the new school term, and though his dad had to work as usual, his mum, Minoru and Megumi should be relaxing, not fussing over him and his injuries! Yata felt horribly guilty, wishing he could go elsewhere and not bother his family. But the look on his mum's face when he'd said he could put up at Kamamoto's for a while was one he didn't want to remember, and he'd realised pronto that he had better just let her have her way.

Two Sceptre 4 guys whose names he didn't know were in an unmarked car across the road – the Blue king's orders, apparently, since they couldn't be sure that Nagato wasn't still manipulating half-crazed folk into going after the clans. As Yata was obviously _(duh!)_ the most helpless of the lot at the moment, he needed additional protection. Okay, that was good because he didn't want his parents, brother or sister to be hurt by some poor unwitting psycho sent after him, but it also made him feel tetchy and useless, being _protected_ like this.

Chitose and Dewa would stay for the day, then Fujishima and Eric would sleep over tonight. His mum didn't look the least fazed – she seemed perfectly happy to welcome his friends – but still, it had to be an imposition.

When his mum started preparing snacks for tea, the house felt more settled. Chitose and Dewa were decent with kids, and kept Minoru and Megumi occupied by sitting out on the veranda with them while the afternoon spring sun was still warming the floorboards. They let the kids show off pictures they'd drawn, the cats Megumi had collected in Neko Atsume, the number of Pokemon Minoru had caught, and some bizarre structure they'd built with a hobby kit Tou-chan had given them. Well, at least they were staying out of Kaa-chan's hair while she busied herself in the kitchen… which she probably wouldn't have to do if he and his friends weren't here taking up space in her house! Aaaargh! More guilt!

He was starting to feel sleepy resting there on the cushion they'd lowered him carefully onto when Chitose glanced up from where he was reclining on the wooden boards and did a double take.

"Hey, Yata – those Blues are out the car and running towards the house…"

At exactly the same time, Dewa was looking at his phone and going: "Shit, Chitose, we forgot to switch our phones back from silent mode after leaving the ward – Fushimi's been trying to call repeatedly… Hello? Fushimi? What…? _What?_ "

Within what felt like a mere second, the people around him exploded into action. One of the swordsmen reached the veranda and scooped Megumi into his arms while yelling at Minoru to follow, and at the same time, Dewa and Chitose bodily lifted Yata up, and they were heading off the veranda when… oh god, no… the other Blue had stayed in the street because he was wrestling a man with a gun – a _gun_! Even in that split second that Yata felt himself being picked up by Dewa and Chitose, a shot rang out, the Blue in the street collapsed, and the man he'd been grappling with was pointing the gun at the house with a mad, desperate look on his face, as if his life depended on his _taking_ a life.

His mother was tearing out of the kitchen towards him, and Yata felt a horrible, nauseating sense of déjà vu as he relived that appalling moment when Anna had rushed into the street to put herself between him and Muruta Kazu, except that this time, he didn't know who was in the line of fire – his mum, Megumi, Minoru, himself, the Blue holding Megumi, Chitose…?

 _Bang!_ The second shot rang out, and Yata felt his heart stop – who'd been hit? Who? _Who?_

In the next second, the answer – and his relief – became clear. No one had been hit.

Because that bloody freaky Blue king was standing between the gunman and the house, emanating some weird white aura that had stopped the bullet, and Saruhiko – _Saruhiko_ was punching the gunman into oblivion with his bare fists – no, not _bare_ , but also cloaked in that white glow. The man was down, Saruhiko was kicking the gun aside, and four more Sceptre 4 guys armed with what looked like riot gear jumped on the gunman to restrain him. The Blue who had been shot was staggering to his feet, clutching his bleeding side – he was alive, thank goodness.

It took another second for Yata to fully realise that Megumi and Minoru had got far inside the house before he had, because, well, Megumi was light and easy to carry, Minoru was nimble, and only he, Misaki, had been a deadweight for Chitose and Dewa who had obeyed the strict instructions to carry him around the torso instead of hauling him by his arms – but his mum had wrapped _her_ arms around him, shielding his head and body, at the point when the gunman had taken aim in the direction of the house.

"Kaa-chan…?" he murmured, when she finally released him and checked him all over anxiously.

"Are you all right? Misaki? Are you all right?" she asked frantically.

"I'm fine – why did you – how could you put yourself between… _Kaa-chan_ _!_ " his voice rose with his distress. "You and Anna – you're both so… oh my god, _I'm supposed to be the one protecting you!_ "

But his mother kissed him hard on the forehead, hugged him again and whispered fiercely: "Mums never stop protecting their kids no matter how big they get, you _idiot!_ "

Before he could answer, she was meeting Saruhiko at the veranda and hugging him, and only then – only _then_ – starting to cry, as Saruhiko stood there, his stupid pretty face a confusion of expressions between relief that no one was dead and bafflement at why Misaki's mother was holding him tightly and sobbing into his waistcoat front.

The tension didn't end there, however, because Munakata was taking a call on his phone as he walked towards the house, but abruptly froze. Saruhiko eased himself gently out of Misaki's mother's arms, handing her over to Minoru, and hurried to Munakata, who was ending the call with a look that Yata had never seen on his face.

What had happened? Oh god, what else had happened? Had someone got hurt while the Blues were here protecting him and his family? Anna…? Surely not…?

Nerves taut to the point of fraying, Yata and his mother watched Munakata and Saruhiko – Munakata with his head bowed and Saruhiko reaching out for him, a hand on his captain's arm, another touching his side. A few words passed between them before Saruhiko bent his head too and, to Yata's further confusion, rested his forehead against Munakata's shoulder.

The tension was killing him. What the hell was going on?

But Saruhiko raised his face to meet his captain's eyes again, and Munakata was smiling and gently stroking Saruhiko's hair. Yata let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. Munakata wouldn't smile if something had gone wrong… right…? And no, it wasn't Anna or anyone from Homra, because here they were now – the Red king, Kusanagi and Kamamoto, looking hugely relieved.

It was only later, when the injured Blue had been sent off for medical treatment, and Misaki's mother had urged everyone else to come indoors for tea, that the revelation – and the enormity – of what Munakata had very nearly sacrificed to save him and his loved ones hit them.

It seemed that at the same time Nagato had dispatched a gunman to the Yata house, he had also sent a killer to the Munakata family home. This Strain he'd hired had the power of hypnosis, and was lying in wait, armed with a hunting knife, as Captain Munakata's sister-in-law and his little niece and nephew had walked home from a nearby park. They would never have stood a chance against him.

But Muruta's attending doctor at the Gold clan, one Ozaki-sensei, had gathered from her patient's ramblings – which it seemed were the result of a telepathic connection to Nagato through some means Yata couldn't even begin to comprehend – that Munakata's relatives were also in danger.

Ozaki-sensei and Saruhiko had been in constant contact, and she had told Saruhiko at once about the threat. Saruhiko had informed Munakata immediately, but they were on the way to the Yata house, and Munakata had chosen to carry on towards Yata while trusting his own relatives to the protection of the Gold clan.

Indeed, Ozaki-sensei had already taken the initiative to have the elder clansman send out two Gold-clan combat-trained Strains to Munakata's parents' home. They had found the assassin and incapacitated him before he could take the lives of an innocent woman and two small children who were very dear to the Blue king.

That was when Yata felt his own face crumpling as he watched his mother start crying all over again, in shock and gratitude and compassion, this time burying her face in Munakata's shoulder.

Through his own tears and sniffles as he stared at the calm, stoic Munakata, Yata found himself thinking an odd thought that he wasn't entirely certain how he'd arrived at: _Finally, someone who's actually worthy of Saruhiko…_


	17. Warmth And Heat

**Note:** NSFW towards the end. Please look away if it isn't your cup of tea!

* * *

 **Warmth And Heat**

"I should have asked Akiyama to tell Ishizuka and Jinnai to warn everyone in the house at once, even if it meant scaring the gunman off," Fushimi murmured. "Then Jinnai might not have been shot, and it wouldn't have been such a close call for Yata and his family."

"Fushimi-kun, it isn't like you to second-guess your decisions," Munakata told him as he drove out of Tsubaki-mon following a debriefing at headquarters that evening. "If Ishizuka and Jinnai had acted before seeing the gunman, he would have left and returned later, when we might have been less prepared to stop him."

"If so, we could have moved the Yatas somewhere safer, or arranged for more protection. We cut it too close."

"I could also question my decision to risk sending my parents and brother into a panic by warning them – there was no way to foresee the right decision," Munakata admitted. "However, it is done. No civilians were hurt, while no clansmen lost their lives. Jinnai will recover. It was a good outcome."

"Still, it was bloody chaotic; what a mess," Fushimi moaned.

During those tense minutes speeding from Nanakamado into Shizume City, Fushimi had communicated with Akiyama to send teams to Yata's house, and with Dr Ozaki on the other line about Muruta's ramblings, as well as trying futilely to contact Chitose and Dewa, and Yata and his mother – whose phones, it turned out, were on silent mode in her handbag. Fushimi and Akiyama had deemed it best to tell Ishizuka and Jinnai to stay put in the car until they sighted the gunman – it seemed better than to let him be alerted and slip away. But that had allowed him to fire off two rounds, and it had been too close for comfort. Fushimi belatedly realised he should also have attempted to call Minoru – he had his number, after all.

Munakata had at first been focused on driving – until Fushimi had conveyed Dr Ozaki's message that his family was also under threat. That was when he'd made a speakerphone call to tell his brother to get safely indoors, as his work mostly kept him in exposed locations. But as they would learn, Munakata Taishi had instead sped off in his truck towards home to try to protect his parents, wife and children.

The captain had also rung his parents and told them to remain indoors as there was possible danger in the streets. Again, his mother and father had disobeyed instructions and rushed out of the house to look for their daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Munakata had not been able to reach his sister-in-law – because her phone was jammed with frantic attempted calls from her husband and parents-in-law. But the Gold Strains had reached the scene in record time using their powers, and incapacitated the hired killer before any of the Munakatas had come within striking distance.

It seemed that whether they hadn't warned the targets (in the case of the Yata household) or had given them a heads-up (as was the case for the Munakata family), disaster could have struck either way. And _all_ of it was a violation of their recent policy of no vital communication through phone lines or messaging platforms that could be monitored by Nagato. But it had been an emergency, with no other way to manage the situation.

"We can only do what seems best at a given point, Fushimi-kun," Munakata said. "There is no way of telling, in that moment, what may result in a more desirable outcome."

It occurred to Fushimi that Munakata might not have said so in the years when he had his king's powers, and he felt for him, but also wanted to argue back. However, they were pulling up outside the Munakata home, and it was not the time to discuss such strategies. Akiyama was in charge at headquarters while Awashima and Weismann were to work closely with the Gold doctors on anything else of significance that Muruta might say, so that the captain could spend a quiet evening with his family. He had asked Fushimi to accompany him.

"Please bear in mind that this does not get you out of the proper visit my brother invited us to make," Munakata smiled just before they got out of the car. "This only counts as an emergency visit."

Fushimi stifled a groan as he swung the car door shut. Yes, he was relieved beyond words that the captain's family was unharmed, and he wasn't opposed to calling on them under such circumstances. However, he'd hoped to get out of the visit altogether when it had first been brought up under the sakura trees that day, and here he was now, committed to _two_.

At the main entrance to the compound, they greeted the Sceptre 4 swordsmen who had been sent over once the hired killer had been arrested. "You may return to headquarters for now," Fushimi dismissed them. "The captain and I will cover things here. We'll send for you or the next team when we're ready to leave."

The swordsmen nodded smartly and took their leave, then Munakata and Fushimi headed for the house.

"Reisi!" Munakata Taishi called out once the captain slid the front door open.

"Ojisan! Ojisan!" two excited voices piped up at the same time, and two pairs of small bare feet carried their little owners towards them.

Once the children had hugged their uncle, five-year-old Umi put her twin-ponytailed head round his coat to greet Fushimi cheerfully with an unexpected "Fushimi-ojisan!", while three-year-old Kai pattered up to Fushimi and gripped his right trouser leg. Even when Fushimi had shed his boots and coat at the genkan, Kai was still clutching the fabric of his trousers, so Fushimi could either limp into the living area or remove the child from his leg. But when he reached down to pry Kai's fingers from his clothes, the boy transferred his grip to his hand at once, and he was forced to lead the kid back to his parents that way, obstinately ignoring the captain's smirk.

"Oh, Kai has been asking when he would see you again, Fushimi-san!" Munakata Taishi told him with a grin. "He really enjoyed the company of his 'quiet ojisan' last autumn!"

Fushimi seated himself at the large kotatsu with everyone else, Kai snuggled up to him as on his first visit, and once again, his lap was booked for the evening. He made an awkward half-bow to the family over the top of Kai's head, again to the amusement of the captain – and his older brother.

"Kai never asks for people he's only met once, and has never taken to anyone outside the family as quickly as he took to you, Fushimi-san," the boy's father declared cheerfully, putting up a braver front that the other adults, who were more subdued.

"I know we didn't follow your instructions to stay put, Reisi, but knowing that Yoshie and the children were at the park, we couldn't just sit here, you know," the captain's father said solemnly, while his mother nodded in agreement.

"And I'm sorry _I_ rushed back home against instructions," Munakata Taishi said sheepishly. "But I'd rather have put myself in danger a thousand times over than let any harm come to Tou-san, Kaa-san, Yoshie and the kids if I could possibly prevent it – you know that."

" _Papa_ and _Jii-chan_ disobeyed instructions?" Umi asked in disbelief. "But Papa and Jii-chan are always telling _me_ to be obedient!"

She had always been quick and alert to things adults thought would go clean over a child's head, and had already forced the Munakata family to alter their setsubun plans earlier this year by having realised, last year, that her father had been playing the "demon" she'd been throwing beans at each last day of winter for the first four years of her life. The captain had been obliged to play the demon instead, and although she probably suspected that her ojisan was behind the mask, she had marginally less compunction about flinging soya beans at her uncle than at her dad.

" _Anata_ , Tou-san, Kaa-san, let's not worry about this in front of the children," Munakata Yoshie said to her husband and parents-in-law as she drew Umi into her lap to say to her: "Umi, Tou-chan and Ojii-chan have learnt today that they must obey instructions better, just like you – so _all_ of us must improve ourselves together, do you understand?"

"Yes, Mama," Umi acquiesced, though Fushimi could tell that she wanted to ask more questions about what she had heard of "danger" and "harm".

Kai, on the other hand, tilted his head all the way back to look straight up at Fushimi, who wordlessly stared back down at him, making Munakata Taishi laugh at the sight of the solemn twosome they made.

"We always try to coax Kai to talk more, but he doesn't like saying much, even though he reads and understands a lot," his father said. "But here's someone with whom he doesn't need to utter a word – and they seem to get each other!"

"Fushimi-kun insists he isn't good with children, but I've seen little ones – even babies – take very well to him," the captain chuckled. "Unlike me – I've always been disliked by children and animals."

"Umi likes Ojisan very much!" the girl protested, looking surprised. "So does Kai!"

"That's only because you're both actually related to me," the Blue king laughed.

"Ehhh?" Umi gasped in disbelief. "Why wouldn't _anyone_ like Ojisan?!"

Fushimi snorted, causing the rest of the Munakatas to look at him queryingly, whereupon he was forced to recover his solemn mien and make an apologetic half-bow over Kai's head again. "Sorry…" he mumbled, realising that some manner of explanation might be required here. "Captain is a demanding boss. Sometimes he even scares adults at work, never mind small children and animals."

"I thought _you_ were the demanding supervisor who terrified grown men at work, Fushimi-kun," Munakata smirked.

"I learnt from the best," Fushimi retorted before glancing away again, finding it unbelievably weird to be doing this play-fighting-cum-flirting with his boss and lover (good god, that sounded _so_ wrong) in front of the latter's family.

"Wow, you're a match for Reisi, Fushimi-san," his elder brother remarked in wonder. "No one else even knows how to start talking back to him."

"All bosses need to be managed," Fushimi muttered, lowering his eyes, finding it easier to look at Kai's fascinated face than at the curious eyes of the adults.

"Fushimi-kun does an admirable job of it," the captain said agreeably, looking at his third in command in a fond way that, to the latter's dismay, did not seem to escape his brother and sister-in-law.

He was about to give his king a glare to please shut up and _stop_ this line of conversation when the children's mother shifted back from the table, saying: "Goodness, where are my manners? I haven't even offered tea – and dinner is almost ready – you're both staying, aren't you? You must – we insist. It's a good thing we'd planned curry stew and rice tonight, and I had everything simmering just before going to the park…"

Her mother-in-law likewise hastened to slide back from the table, putting her hands to her mouth in horror at how she had forgotten to be hospitable. "Oh dear, how could we not have given Reisi and Fushimi-san some tea?"

"Yoshie, Kaa-san, sit down," Munakata Taishi ordered, sliding back from the table himself and getting to his feet. "We've all had a bad shock today – we're still recovering. I'll get the tea – and yes, Reisi and Fushimi-san _must_ stay for dinner."

His wife rose along with him and his mother, saying: "We'll all do this together – it'll be faster – and you don't know where some of the things are kept…"

They hurried into the kitchen, leaving the captain, Fushimi and the children with the captain's father.

"It would be very nice if you would both stay the night, not just for dinner," the elder Munakata said. "We hardly get to see you, Reisi, and at a time like this, your mother and I would be very happy to have you sleep here. Also, Fushimi-san, Kai is so fond of you, he'd be delighted if you stayed too."

Fushimi's heart sank. Why was a visit for the evening turning into dinner and an overnight stay? He didn't know what to say to people in general, except ones he knew well, and he particularly did not know what to say to the captain's family, with whom he had nothing in common. There was no Awashima here today to be a buffer between him and these normal folk either. He hoped fervently that the captain would decline, but Munakata Taishi, who'd overheard his father from where he was hovering outside the kitchen waiting to be given something to carry, seconded the offer enthusiastically.

"Yes, Reisi, Fushimi-san, please stay!" he called out from where he was. "I usually work on Sundays, but I've taken tomorrow off to be with Yoshie and the kids, so it'll be nice to have you around tonight. Fushimi-san, we have a guest futon for you – and you don't mind sharing a room with Reisi, do you?"

"Very well, Nii-san, we'll stay," the captain agreed with a smile. "I'll let my team know not to expect us back until morning."

Fushimi dropped his head again, and once more, locked gazes with the child in his lap, who was at least radiating a pleasant level of warmth on this cold spring evening. Kai's wide eyes looked sympathetic to his plight, but the boy's other actions indicated otherwise – he gave a small huff of contentment like a puppy settling into a safe corner with a comfort blanket, leaned back against Fushimi, and bumped him under the chin with the top of his head.

It was hopeless. He was doomed.

…

The amount of quiet bustle around them was bewildering to Fushimi, who had always aimed for a fuss-free existence. But it struck him after watching it all in a daze for a few minutes that this was the family's way of not only trying to make him comfortable, but also to keep themselves too busy to dwell on the frightening thoughts of how badly things could have ended today.

So he took it as calmly as he could – the womenfolk shuffling in and out of the bedroom with bath towels, sleeping yukata and house slippers for him and the captain, a new toothbrush for his use, and a disposable comb with an unidentifiable logo on it – probably a freebie from some corporate event. (Fushimi could picture how managers at brand launches would offload leftover premiums from goodie bags to contractors engaged for the day – like Munakata Taishi, who might be hired to decorate the venue with potted plants, for example.)

They also came in to unload the captain's usual futon, and a guest one, from the closet.

"We'll lay them out ourselves later, Nee-san," the captain assured his sister-in-law.

"Are you sure? I can lay them out for you," she offered readily, already reaching for one of the shikibuton.

"Nee-san, please don't treat me like a guest," the captain chuckled. "And please regard Fushimi-kun as one of us too. He is, you know."

Sitting there on the tatami in the bedroom that the captain apparently used whenever he visited his parents, Fushimi determinedly kept his back turned, pretending to busy himself with looking for something in the pockets of his coat. He'd brought it into the bedroom along with the nylon carrier he'd put his entire throwing-knife harness and arm and leg holsters into, as well as the crystals. He'd had to do that once it became clear that he was going to be dragged home by the captain – he couldn't possibly remove his coat indoors without at least some of those weapons showing.

He didn't want to look at the captain's sister-in-law's face now in case he saw that she _knew_ something. She probably did. Damn it, women had a sense for things like this. And apart from the captain himself, the rest of the Munakata family – with their innate awareness of how to grow and shape plants so as to touch others' hearts – seemed to run on feelings and instincts; the fact that _something was going on_ between him and the captain might not escape them.

As it was, they'd already received curious looks as the captain had teased Fushimi over dinner about how well he was getting along with Kai, who was looking increasingly like a permanent attachment Fushimi had sprouted from his ribcage, and Fushimi had bantered right back, albeit a bit more snappishly.

The captain's mother had observed with amazement that she'd never seen her younger son look or sound as enthusiastic in conversation with anyone else. She'd added: "You must visit more often with Reisi, Fushimi-kun – he's so lively when he's talking to you!" (Yes, he had somehow become "Fushimi-kun" to the other adults too, somewhere in the course of the evening.)

"Well, please let me know at once if you need anything," said the captain's sister-in-law with a smile as she scooted back towards the sliding screen door along the tatami. "Especially Fushimi-kun – don't hesitate to ask. We've filled the bath, and the water should be just right in about five minutes – please go first, Fushimi-kun."

"No, the family should go first," Fushimi said quickly, turning himself around on the tatami to face her and bow. "Especially the children – you need to get the children ready for bed."

It wasn't the sort of thing he'd ordinarily have expected himself to know, but having slept over at Misaki's parents' place so often in his teens, he'd somehow absorbed the necessity of getting small kids prepped for bedtime – even on a Saturday night – and how, in busy families, the usual hierarchy of letting elders bathe first was completely upended in favour of getting the children clean.

"I insist," he said firmly, with as formal a bow as he could muster sitting cross-legged. "Besides, I'm not ready yet."

"Are you certain?" she asked, looking concerned.

"Yes, I am. Please go ahead."

"Well, if you're sure… we'll be quick!" she said brightly, disappearing from the room and sliding the screen door shut behind her even before Fushimi could tell her that there was no need to hurry.

Once she disappeared, Fushimi collapsed backwards on the tatami. "I can't do this," he breathed, exhausted from the entire evening's interactions and all the _politeness_ required of him.

Munakata padded over, gazed down at his supine figure for a few moments with an affectionate smile, then reclined beside him and kissed him on the cheek. "You're doing so well, Fushimi-kun. Thank you."

"What are you thanking me for?"

"For doing your very best with my family. I know you have little to say to them, but you're trying. I truly appreciate that."

"Sounds from what your mother said over dinner that you don't exactly do a lot of talking with them either."

"I was always different, and we've rarely if ever shared the same interests," Munakata admitted. "But it's a mystery we have long accepted as a given, and I have learnt how to converse with my family about a variety of things to express my interest in _them_ even if I am not much intrigued by the _things_ they are absorbed by. It was one of the hardest skills for me to acquire."

"Might be beyond me," Fushimi murmured. "And we have to do this _again_ at a later date?"

"It would mean a lot to me to have the people who are most important to me grow more familiar and comfortable with one another."

"I'll try," Fushimi sighed.

"In turn, I'll get to know Yata Misaki better – he is as important to you as my family is to me, is he not?"

"You two are like oil and water. Nightmare," Fushimi huffed. "Although Misaki may work harder at being nice to you after all you did to keep his family safe even when your own was in danger – it means a lot to him, and to me – and I don't know how you did that…"

Munakata didn't comment on how hard it had been. He only lay there in thoughtful silence for some time, tracing the contours of Fushimi's face with his finger. At last, he reached for Fushimi to pull him into a deep kiss, which they eventually had to break in a hurry when scrabbling sounds from the screen door heralded the arrival of Kai slipping into the room after his bath to wrap himself in Fushimi's coat and play with its shiny buttons.

…

Kai was sleepy and snug in the coat by the time Fushimi returned from his scrub-down in the shower and a quick soak in the bath. It was the captain's turn next, and once he left the room, Kai, abandoning the coat, crawled over to Fushimi and hugged his knees.

When he'd been wearing his uniform trousers earlier, the fabric had been a barrier between his skin and the child, but now that he was in the indigo yukata they'd lent him, the toddler was all over his legs – fortunately, Kai was clean after his own bath and wasn't sticky or smelly, but still, Fushimi could swear he felt a smear of saliva against his right shin.

Was it his fate to be drooled on by this kid every time he visited?

He sighed and picked Kai up, holding him at both arms' length as if he were carrying a dog he feared would pee on him. He lowered himself into a cross-legged position on the tatami and settled Kai to his left, letting him drape himself over his thigh. The child was starting to doze – and drool some more – when the door slid open, and his sister came trotting up to plant herself on Fushimi's other side. She dropped her head to his right thigh, looked up at him rather like her brother had all evening, and asked: "Will Kai be sleeping with ojisan and Fushimi-ojisan? Can I sleep here too?"

Fushimi, startled, could only muster the beginnings of a stammered reply to her when, thankfully, her mother appeared in the doorway.

"I'm _so_ sorry, Fushimi-kun," she said sheepishly. "You know how children are – they get so excited when we have visitors."

She shuffled over and bent easily into a _kiza_ to pick the dozing Kai up and beckon Umi over. Kai uttered a tiny sound of protest and strained to turn around in his mum's arms, reaching out for Fushimi.

"Kai, it's bedtime," she laughed. "You and Nee-chan want to sleep with Papa and Mama tonight, don't you?"

"Papa… Mama…?" Kai murmured, barely audibly.

"Yes," she chuckled, bouncing him in her arms once. "Kai and Nee-chan will sleep with Papa and Mama now, all right?"

" _Hai,_ " both Umi and Kai said, as the boy buried his face in her shoulder and the girl took their mother's free hand.

" _Oyasumi nasai_ ," she said, walking to the door, prompting her children to repeat the same goodnight greeting.

" _Oyasumi nasai_ ," Fushimi mumbled back, feeling embarrassed to be in the midst of all this domesticity.

Alone at last, he started laying out his futon, unfolding the shikibuton mattress and spreading the sheet over it, folding it as neatly under the corners as he was able to, before slipping the fitted cover over the duvet and plumping up the pillow. He did likewise for the captain's futon, keeping it at a respectable distance from his own.

It seemed _wrong_ to push his futon right up against his lover's in a house where _children_ played, where _decent_ family folk lived…

"Fushimi-kun?" the captain's voice roused him from his thoughts. "Are you all right?"

He'd just returned from his bath.

"Uh-huh," he said, crawling under the duvet, lying on his side, facing away from Munakata, and checking his phone for urgent messages before setting the alarm and placing his glasses carefully beside the phone on the tatami.

That was when he felt the light bump of Munakata's futon against his.

"What are you doing?" he asked, whipping around on the mattress. "That screen door doesn't lock – if anyone comes in…"

"I'll switch the light off in a moment – there are no street lamps on this side of the house, and we don't leave the passageway lights on at night – it will be too dark to see anything. I should know – I grew up in this room."

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

"Look – it could be the _children_ …"

"Still too dark."

With that, Munakata took hold of the pull-cord of the overhead light and tugged, plunging the room into complete darkness.

"Shit," Fushimi muttered.

With an exasperated huff, he flopped onto his side petulantly to keep his back to the other man's futon, and pulled the duvet right up to his ears. Munakata was being impossible.

But he couldn't deny that he liked it when his captain slid over to his side, slipped under his duvet, and wrapped an arm round his waist from behind. He simply held him like that, giving him his warmth, until Fushimi shifted to make room for him on the pillow.

"What happened to your assurance to Lieutenant Awashima that we weren't sleeping together?" Fushimi asked, smiling in the darkness as he gave in and pressed his back against Munakata's front.

"Well, it's normal to share rooms when one is sleeping over at someone else's home, isn't it?" Munakata responded. "We're at my home, in my room, and not at the dorm, so this is beyond the normal scope of the rules."

"I swear you enjoy bending the rules whenever it suits you," Fushimi grinned – he knew Munakata couldn't see it, but he had to hear it in his voice. "You and your flexible, shifting lines between _business_ and _pleasure_ – I'd hate to have to negotiate a work contract with you."

"It's a good thing we're negotiating a very different kind of relationship, isn't it?" Munakata asked, and Fushimi could hear the smile in his voice too. He could even feel the curve of that smile still on his lips when Munakata nuzzled the nape of his neck and pressed a kiss to his skin, triggering a tingle of pleasure that shot like a current through Fushimi's body.

He inhaled sharply. "Captain… no, don't… they'll hear…"

"Not if we're very quiet about it."

" _What?_ " Fushimi hissed in disbelief, fighting the pull of the near-irresistible sensations in an attempt to nip this in the bud. _Shit._ They'd hear. They'd _know_. He'd never be able to look those decent, normal family folk in the face in the morning… or ever. "I'm not sure that we _can!_ "

"Shhh," Munakata breathed in his ear even as those long fingers were loosening the knot of Fushimi's yukata tie.

" _Captain!_ " Fushimi growled urgently, putting his hand over Munakata's to try to stop him.

" _Shhh_ ," Munakata repeated. "You don't want them to hear, do you?"

If Fushimi had ever been the kind of child from the kind of family where he could have brought school friends home for sleepovers and midnight kitchen raids, he might have found the hissing, whispering, hiding from parents, and playful panic nostalgic. But neither he nor Munakata had ever been that sort of child – for different reasons – and this was all about the two of them. Just them.

He drew a long, sibilant breath as he fought against the untying of his obi, and thought he'd succeeded when the captain withdrew his hand, only to have Munakata go right to the point by slipping that same hand between the lower folds of his yukata to caress his bare flesh beneath the robe.

Fushimi jerked back, throwing his head against his lover's shoulder, as the captain closed his hand around his length and stroked him firmly. He hadn't even fully realised that he was already half hard until Munakata's fingers had wrapped around his shaft, and then there was no going back. He gasped and buried his face in the pillow to smother the sound of his heavy, sharp breaths, even wrapping his arm around the pillow to press it harder against his face.

Munakata let him moan into the pillow a few times as his hand worked him into a fully hard state – the strokes were firm and dry, his pre-cum not enough to offer any decent lubrication, but it didn't matter, because the covertness and the need for silence and the intimacy in this darkness felt _amazing_. In any event, before the dryness and friction could get uncomfortable, Munakata was pulling him away from the pillow, turning him around and quieting his panting by pressing his mouth to his in a deep and dirty kiss, then breaking off to lick and suck his cock while his hand continued to pump him into a frenzy.

He couldn't – he _couldn't_ keep quiet – it was too much, too _intense_ , and he twisted onto his side again, smothering his face in the pillow once more. Munakata permitted him to pull out of his mouth, but kept going with his hand, now slick with saliva and pre-cum. He shifted back up to lie alongside Fushimi once more, moulding his body to the curve of the younger man's spine as Fushimi thrust hard into Munakata's hand with every downstroke, heaving and panting into the pillow, bucking his back against the captain's chest.

He was close, so close… and the intensity rose another notch as he felt Munakata's other hand work its way into his hair, right down to the scalp, to pull him off the pillow – not harshly, but somehow somewhat in the way a mother cat would lift her kitten by its scruff. And like a struggling kitten, he fought it too, panicking at not being able to stifle his cries – he was about to shove his own knuckles into his mouth to bite down – but then Munakata covered his lips with his own again, thrust his tongue into his mouth, and tightened his grip on his hair, and at once, Fushimi came hard. He unravelled, moaning and gasping around Munakata's tongue and into his mouth, and pushing deeper into his hand, slowing towards the end, then pushing deep twice more at the close before going completely limp and collapsing onto the mattress.

In the few moments he spent in that blissful deathlike state, he felt Munakata slip his arms under his body and ease him over to the other futon, then step away momentarily before returning to wipe him clean with what was probably a face towel – he didn't know and didn't care. Then his yukata was carefully rearranged around him, and the captain's duvet was drawn over him.

"What're you…?" he slurred, still breathing heavily.

"Just sleep," Munakata murmured, kissing him on the forehead.

"But you…"

"I'm good," the captain chuckled softly, running a thumb lightly over his cheek before moving away again.

As Fushimi lay there in a semi-stupor, he was vaguely aware that Munakata was stripping off the sheet and duvet cover of the futon they had just abandoned. He drifted off as the man slipped under the covers with him and kissed him on the temple once more before sleep claimed him.


	18. Discretion

**Discretion**

Beneath the light, fresh fragrance of the shampoo he'd washed his hair with before going to bed, Fushimi smelt faintly of cinnamon and warm wood. Munakata buried his face in the younger man's hair, indulging in another dose of that scent as he drew him closer, savouring the comforting weight of him in his arms, against his body. He felt the reassuring rise and fall of his chest in that deep, even rhythm, matching the soft clouds of breath heating his skin over the neckline of his yukata.

He had stirred briefly when Munakata had slipped back into bed after seeing to the stained duvet cover, but quickly burrowed into his arms and sunk into slumber again. Munakata had known from the start of their association years ago that this kid wasn't good at falling asleep, and was a light sleeper in unfamiliar surroundings. But he was quite good at _staying_ in dreamland once he nodded off, particularly when he felt safe. It had taken Fushimi months to feel secure at the Sceptre 4 dorm, yet he had slept soundly here on his first night at Munakata's family home.

Perhaps it was the added security of his captain being in the same room, his throwing knives near him on the tatami, and right beside the knives, the crystals through which they could express their powers. It also helped that he knew Sceptre 4 swordsmen had been watching the house from their vehicles parked in the street since 11pm. Still, it was a good sign that he didn't feel threatened or agitated among Munakata's closest relatives.

All these years, Munakata had derived satisfaction from being a naturally early riser who needed very few hours of rest because it enabled him to get so much more work done than anyone else. Now, he discovered that a greater joy than productivity was the pleasure of being awake to appreciate the intimacy of holding a sleeping Fushimi Saruhiko in bed.

His clansman and lover had his face pressed against his chest, one arm squeezed between their bodies, the other hand fisted in almost childlike fashion in the fabric of Munakata's yukata. Awake, he was all prickliness and sharp edges; asleep, he was soft and warm, a kitten with its claws sheathed. He'd even slid a thigh between Munakata's legs in his slumber – his skin was as smooth as his own, neither of them having much body hair to speak of – and Munakata liked that easy glide of skin against skin, firm muscle shifting beneath. He thrilled to the casual possessiveness of that leg pushed in to be sandwiched by his knees – it didn't matter that it was done unawares, it still spoke volumes in body language: Fushimi was at ease in his arms, unafraid to use him to make himself more comfortable.

He wondered if he had ever snuggled this close to Yata Misaki when they had been schoolkids, or when they'd lived together in that flat which was barely designed for human accommodation. He thought not. Perhaps they had lain close on cold evenings under the kotatsu, or one might have dozed off with his head on the other's shoulder, but they probably hadn't held each other this way. Between Fushimi's constant holding-back out of fear that he would disgust Yata, and Yata's careless naivete, the two boys were unlikely to have found their way into each other's arms. And Fushimi had certainly never willingly got half this close to Suoh Mikoto – not with the degree to which he had evidently felt repelled by him.

It moved Munakata to know that Fushimi liked and trusted him enough to readily sleep in his embrace.

He was mumbling something now, and the flexing of his limbs as well as the fluttering of those long lashes against his chest told Munakata that he was waking.

"I swear I can almost _hear_ you thinking something weird," Fushimi sighed in a sleep-thickened grumble.

"Did my ruminations wake you?" Munakata asked. "Forgive me."

"What time is it?"

"Five in the morning. The sky is already quite light."

"What's on your mind?"

"You."

"Oh."

"Does knowing that trouble you?"

" _Tch._ Depends what you're thinking about me."

"That you are like a kitten when you sleep, and how pleased I am to be able to hold you like this," he admitted frankly.

" _Kitten?_ Okay, that's a bit creepy. Go sleep with Neko."

"I much prefer _this_ kitten," Munakata replied, planting a kiss on the top of Fushimi's head.

"Hmph…"

Suddenly, Fushimi shot upright, hissing: "Damn! The sheets! They're–"

"All sponged clean and dried."

" _Haaah?_ You–"

"Sponged the duvet cover clean in the bathroom and dried the patch with a hairdryer. Nothing else was stained, and no one woke up to find me at it. So all's well, don't fret."

Fushimi slumped back onto the futon, muttering: "Ordinarily, I'd say I was awfully sorry to anyone who had to clean my cum off the bed linen, but in this case, it was completely your fault for molesting me, so I'll say you had it coming, no pun intended."

"Indeed?"

"And the thought of you hiding in a bathroom blasting a hairdryer at a wet patch you'd just scrubbed my stains off is priceless, so we're even," he snickered.

"Oh, were my advances so very unwelcome?"

"I didn't say that."

"I wanted to be close to you," Munakata confessed unhesitatingly, cupping Fushimi's cheek with his palm. "I wanted to touch you, give you pleasure and hold you in the bedroom where I grew up."

"I know," Fushimi whispered back, tracing a line with his finger down Munakata's neck and chest.

"You don't mind that I gave in to my desires?"

"Nope. But I do mind that you didn't let me touch you back," Fushimi complained. "And you wouldn't let me fight back because we had to be so bloody quiet. But it's past five now, so we'll have to be up soon."

"Later, then?" Munakata asked, kissing Fushimi.

"Later."

The alarm Fushimi had set on his phone went off, so he rolled over both futons to slap his glasses on and switch the alarm off. They stripped off whatever bed linen needed to be removed, put it into a neat pile in the basket for washing, folded up the mattresses and duvets, and stacked them tidily in the closet, leaving no evidence of what had happened in the night.

…

Zenjou had been up earlier than usual for a few days in a row now. Manpower was stretched tight; everyone had been roped in to help out in areas where they normally weren't urgently needed. With members of the swordsmen's unit as well as the special ops squad assigned on rotation round the clock to watch key Gold clan business centres, Yata Misaki and his family, Nitta Yumi, the academy island, and now, Captain Munakata's family too – all on top of their regular duties managing criminal Strain activity – and the latest orders that no one was to step out of the compound alone (which meant double the personnel needed for every assignment), Sceptre 4 was feeling the strain.

He himself found his experience particularly called for now that they were dealing with Nagato Hideyoshi, who could well have hacked their computer systems, smartphones and heaven knows what else for years to learn everything there was to know about them. As all communications involving Nagato's case and other confidential matters had to be taken off the network, Zenjou had overseen the IT section's setting-up of an intranet system for e-mail and document filing, as well as directing the workflow for internal and external communications via hard-copy printouts from standalone computers.

He wasn't at all savvy with computers and IT, but his oversight proved invaluable because he was the only senior member of staff who had been part of the Blue clan back in the days when Sceptre 4 still preferred to rely on old-school communication and primarily used an intranet system for e-mail to internal parties. These youngsters, who'd grown up with smartphones glued to their hands and didn't understand life without the internet, could barely comprehend how to communicate without their usual tools.

"Hmm, Kariba-kun," Zenjou had found himself, two days ago, saying bemusedly to a swordsman scarcely out of his teens who was actually typing out a _15-word message_ on a Word-processing document so he could _print it out_ and have it _couriered_ to an administrator in the Gold clan. "Your contact in the Gold clan does know you, does she not?"

"Yes, Zenjou-san." Kariba had said, looking puzzled at why Zenjou looked puzzled.

"Wouldn't it be faster to just pick up the phone?"

"But we can't use our phones…" Kariba had begun.

"The _landline_ phone – the new device buried under your pile of documents – we just secured our landline network yesterday against tapping and hijacking, didn't we, in tandem with the Gold clan doing the same?"

"Ahhh. Yes. So sorry, Zenjou-san…"

Basic matters. As well as other matters concerning how the intranet e-mail should be functioning, which only he had personally experienced. Or how to organise records in ring files. And how failing to organise such physical records properly would make them a nightmare to find when you needed them, because ring files and L folders didn't come with a "search" function. Zenjou hoped they caught this Nagato fellow _soon_ so the field personnel would stop staggering back to headquarters like the sleep-deprived zombies they were turning into, and the office staff could stop fumbling through their work like inept interns.

As the sun rose, he looked out of the office window and saw that the sakura had almost finished blooming and falling for the year. He felt another pang for Kusuhara Takeru, but rode it out and thought how, eventually, everyone would reach the end of his life, however long it took for each person.

The sakura would bloom against next year if the world didn't end. If Nagato Hideyoshi woke this enraged "god" Lieutenant Awashima had briefed him about, then perhaps the world really would end. If the world ended, maybe he would be able to smile at Kusuhara and console him with the fact that he hadn't left the physical plane so very much earlier than the rest of them. But the boy was sweet-natured, and would be sad that others had followed him to an earlier-than-expected grave.

So maybe the world shouldn't end yet. And maybe, when at last he too was dead, the cycle of reincarnation would take him and Kusuhara into another manner of existence and let them both live out their full lives in peace. If he had any say in it, he wouldn't let Kusuhara be a fragile cherry blossom next time round.

For now, he would hope that the world didn't end too soon, so that there would still be people in it to remember the fallen.

…

"The Strain hired by Nagato to attack Captain Munakata's family is one unknown to us, and who will be registered from now. He is currently secured in one of Sceptre 4's aura-inhibiting detention cells, and will be rehabilitated," Awashima explained to Weismann, Kuroh, Anna, Kusanagi, the elder Gold clansman and researchers, who had gathered at Nanakamado this morning to discuss their next step after the proof yesterday that Nagato – and maybe his god, too – was escalating the war against the clans. "As for the gunman who was engaged to go after Yata Misaki, he is human, with no criminal record, but says he was pushed to do what he did because he is heavily in debt to numerous creditors because of gambling and drug addictions. He has been handed over to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police."

"We don't know that there won't be any more attempts on the lives of the kings and clansmen, do we?" Weismann asked.

"I'm afraid we don't. But we can't use Muruta Kazu's rantings now, and we shall have to regard all phone communications made yesterday as compromised," Awashima said.

"Meaning we must assume from here on that Nagato knows Muruta has tapped into his mind unintentionally, and we can't rely any more on whatever utterances he may make?" Kusanagi clarified.

"That is correct, Kusanagi-san," Awashima replied, ignoring his grimace when she didn't call him "Kusanagi-kun" the way she did in private. "Ozaki-sensei, in any case, Captain Munakata has confirmed with me in a secured landline conversation that we do not want Muruta Kazu to be tormented any further by this unintended connection he has made with Nagato and the unknown power. Even if he were to say anything now that seems useful, there is a chance it could merely be a deliberate attempt by Nagato to mislead us. So is there a way to help him recover?"

"Thanks to Fushimi-san making a very accurate guess about what may have caused Muruta to accidentally complete the process of shaping his brainwaves to the frequency of the unknown power and Nagato, we can expose him to other stimuli that we hope can reshape his brain wavelengths," Dr Ozaki confirmed. "At least we know now why the medication that worked on the other psychokinesis subjects didn't work as well on him."

"May I see Muruta?" Anna asked unexpectedly.

" _Aka no O_ ," the elder Gold clansman addressed Anna. "What do you have in mind?"

"Muruta Kazu tried to kill me and my clansman while he was not in control of himself," Anna said, looking up into the Rabbit mask. "At the time, I could not see his fate or connect with him, as his mind was clouded by madness. But I wish to understand what he is going through now."

"Anna-chan, if you accidentally 'connect' through him with the other power or Nagato, it's going to be dangerous," Weismann warned.

"I know. But the powers from the slate are telling me that they want me to sense what this other god has done. They still cannot locate Nagato or the place where this other god is sealed, but he is growing more awake," Anna said. "Before Muruta Kazu has his mind wavelengths fully reshaped, please let me see him. I won't need more than a few minutes."

The elder clansman nodded, so Dr Ozaki led the way to Muruta's room. But she stopped before reaching his door, and said firmly: "This isn't a zoo, and Muruta-san is not an exhibit. I don't want a crowd of people upsetting him. The Red king, the Silver king and Lieutenant Awashima may enter with me and my medical team. Everyone else, please wait outside."

Awashima didn't know what she was expecting to see when she entered – perhaps the crazed Muruta rocking himself mindlessly in a corner? But she was surprised to find him standing, leaning against one wall of his padded room, talking quite calmly to two of Dr Ozaki's assistants.

"Muruta-san," Dr Ozaki said. "I see you're having one of your good moments. Are you feeling better today?"

"Yes, sensei," he said softly. "The music you played last night – it helped."

" _Aka no O_ , what you said about wanting to see the patient before his brainwaves were _fully_ reshaped tells me that you already know what I've begun doing. I'm afraid I didn't wait for the captain's decision to start redirecting his brain frequencies," Dr Ozaki admitted. "After Fushimi-san told me what he suspected, and once I had confirmation that Captain Munakata's and Yata Misaki's families were safe, I began to use different kinds of music to start pulling Muruta away from his link with Nagato and the other power. It was my duty as his attending physician to help him as soon as possible."

"We understand, Ozaki-sensei," Awashima said.

Awashima also did not know what she had expected Anna to do, but it was nothing dramatic at all. Anna simply looked at Muruta for a minute, then nodded to Dr Ozaki to indicate that she was ready to leave.

Surprisingly, Muruta spoke as Anna turned away.

"Young lady," he said softly. "You… you're the girl in the street from that day. The one I almost killed. I don't remember much from that morning, but I've been told what I did, and I remember your face."

Anna looked straight at him and said just as softly: "Yes, that was me."

"I'm sorry, Miss," he said, swallowing around his words. "I'm sorry I hurt your young man too. I don't know why I felt so enraged with Homra that day – I've delivered fish to the restaurants in that area for years, and I've always known that Homra protects that territory. I've also always thought you people did a good job. I don't know how I could have done what I did. I'm sorry."

"I know that it wasn't you in control that day," Anna said kindly, although Awashima could see the shadow of those terrifying moments flicker across her eyes. "Please get well soon."

Upon leaving the hospital wing and returning to the meeting room they had come from, the first thing Anna said was to Dr Ozaki: "Sensei, thank you for putting your patient first. I am so glad to see how the research facility and hospital are run now, with doctors like you in charge of patients with special abilities. As you know, I was once a patient here, and I… I'm just happy that things are different now."

"Thank you, _Aka no O_ ," Dr Ozaki said, no doubt thinking that she, too, was relieved that certain people from the past were no longer in charge of this place.

"About what I sense in Muruta… I see that his fate is to return to the way he was," Anna said. "I do not sense that the other power has a permanent hold on him. But what I could sense of the connection that is slowly being worn down between him and Nagato and the other god tells me we need to act quickly. With the help of the powers from the slate, I feel from the connection Muruta had with Nagato that Nagato is definitely becoming different from the Strain he used to be. Our god and demon confirm that what I sense of his mind means he is halfway to turning into something else that will belong entirely to the other god. We may soon be unable to stop him using the methods Saruhiko demonstrated, or any other methods we are familiar with for incapacitating Strains."

"But we have no idea how to do that," Kusanagi sighed.

"We'll have to find a way no matter what," Awashima remarked grimly.

…

They were worn out, stretched thin, drained. That was what first struck Fushimi when he and Munakata returned to headquarters that morning after a quick breakfast with the captain's family.

This couldn't go on. His fellow clansmen would soon be running on empty. Even if they learnt to use the artificial crystals quickly, it wouldn't change the fact that they were being pulled in every direction. He rarely felt guilty about Sceptre 4 staff being overworked – hell, he'd long been the most overworked of all – but this was an unsustainable situation, and in his view, he was the one who had failed to activate a good plan for stopping Nagato.

Worse, the crazy guy was now going after family members of the people he held responsible for his girlfriend's death. Fushimi felt overwhelmed by the impossibility of protecting everyone, and suddenly, two images reared up in his mind: First, Misaki's mother shielding her son, then weeping into his jacket and Munakata's shoulder; second, the captain's sister-in-law providentially finding him alone outside the bathroom just before he left the house this morning. As it was, he was already embarrassed about meeting her eyes because he'd discovered only upon waking up that she had quietly taken his and Munakata's underwear and uniform shirts while they were bathing, and laundered, dried and ironed them, then laid them carefully on a rack outside their room for them to find in the morning. He'd grown even more tongue-tied when she said what she wanted to say to him:

 _Fushimi-kun, we didn't want to bring it up yesterday because Reisi said you would be embarrassed, but I can't just let you leave without saying thank you – thank you for discovering what was being planned by the criminal you and Reisi are hunting. Thank you for finding out in time so that your colleagues – or your… allies? – could save my children and me. I saw the man, you know, just two seconds before those people wearing rabbit masks appeared and stopped him. I quickly turned Umi and Kai around so they wouldn't see. But I saw – I saw the man, and his knife... I just… I just want to thank you, Fushimi-kun._

He'd mumbled awkwardly that many people had helped, it wasn't down to him, and he hadn't done much. But she'd taken his hand in both of hers and squeezed, putting a smile on her face to keep her tears at bay. And she'd added in an even softer whisper:

 _Fushimi-kun, you make Reisi happy – my husband and I can tell. I, for one, already consider you part of the family. Please continue to stay by Reisi's side, and please visit us very often – even without Reisi!_

He hadn't known what to say, but she seemed to know that too, and let him go without pressing for an answer.

He thought of her and her children, and of Misaki's mother, and felt the tremendous responsibility of keeping them safe. He thought of people like Muruta and Aoki Tadao and how he did not want anyone else to go through what they had. He looked around at the faces in Sceptre 4 with dark circles and lines under every pair of eyes, and felt how close they were to burning out. Perhaps most of all, he thought of Munakata, his warmth and his touch, his kisses and the special, tender smile no one else saw but him, and how he had very nearly lost the chance to know any of that when the gunman had fired at them on the school island…

This couldn't go on.

"Fushimi-kun, are you all right?" Munakata asked.

"Ah – yeah. There's a lot to do. I'd better get cracking," he said. "I'll be at Nanakamado for most of the day and night."

"Oh? I thought Sakamoto-sensei said yesterday that he wouldn't need you to go in until tomorrow, as they're still fine-tuning the third-generation crystals?"

"I'll go in anyway – I do need to return these crystals for them to work on, including the second-generation one you used yesterday. Besides, I should be able to help with the fine-tuning too since their other two testers are knocked out. Benzai and Enomoto are doing a decent job overseeing the following-up of leads on Nagato's whereabouts – they can manage without me for now."

"Well, I suppose that is true," Munakata mused. "And Awashima and Akiyama too are doing an excellent job running Sceptre 4 whenever I'm not present – and they will have to continue holding the fort today."

"Yeah, you have those meetings with the prime minister and the Cabinet all day, don't you?" Fushimi asked.

"I do indeed. I suppose we'll both be back so late that I shall see you tomorrow morning, Fushimi-kun."

"Looks like it."

"Remember to have two swordsmen drive you to Nanakamado. Don't compel me to have you babysat by Awashima-kun about such a small matter, please?"

"Fine. I won't leave the compound without 'bodyguards'."

"Wonderful. See you in the morning, then, Fushimi-kun."

"See you," he said, giving the captain one last look before they headed for their respective offices.

Once he had attended to some documents that required his clearance, and made a few decisions Benzai needed him to make, Fushimi cleared a pile of paperwork. But once he knew that Munakata's car had driven out of headquarters, he himself left the office.

But he didn't go to any of the units to order someone to drive him to Nanakamado. In fact, he did not head for the other offices, training grounds or barracks at all. Instead, Fushimi made a beeline for the dorm. No one was there at this hour, of course, with everyone on duty and tearing around like madmen. He double-checked that no one had seen him, then he entered his room and locked the door behind him.

He sat on the hard boards of the unoccupied bunk bed below his, and laid out his tools – the third-generation crystal that was partially customised to his frequency, the second-generation crystal the captain had borrowed from the lab for use during the emergency situation yesterday, the details put together by the data analyst about how to complete the training to tune one's mind to the frequency that would match the other power, his laptop, his brain-training programme, a variety of tools, and a router and modem that would give him access to the internet.

He knew very well that the Gold clan testers had collapsed under the strain of attempting to use a combination of the second-generation and third-generation crystals the day before yesterday, and how dangerous it was. But the combination was the most powerful thing they had right now, and using it was the only way he would have potent and accurate-enough aura to rapidly achieve what would normally take weeks to do: use the data and the training to temporarily tune his mind closely enough to Nagato's. With that, he would establish a link with him to bait him online, then use his aura-infused tools and programmes to keep him there, trap him, trace his location, and dispatch teams to arrest him.

He disabled the GPS tracker function on his phone.

No one would know he was here.

With Munakata away at those meetings, and with no one at the Gold clan expecting him to come in, he had all day.

…

Zenjou finally wrapped up most of his work at 9pm, and was getting ready to use the bath, then return to his room for the night. But his phone beeped with an incoming message, and after awkwardly opening the message with his one hand, he found to his surprise that it was from Sceptre 4's third-in-command.

 _Zenjou-san, please come to the detention barracks now – alone_ , it read.

How strange. He hardly had direct dealings with Fushimi. He went, anyway, armed with his sword, guessing that this might not involve simple matters of administration. Surprisingly, the guards at the barracks seemed to be expecting him, for they greeted him readily: "Zenjou-san! Fushimi-san is waiting for you at the very last cell in the left wing of this block."

"Did Fushimi-san say what he was doing here?" Zenjou asked them.

"Apparently some special preparations for the cell he's planning to have Nagato Hideyoshi locked up in," one of the guards shrugged.

"And he's alone? Was he authorised to go in at this hour? Am _I_ authorised to even go in at all?" Zenjou questioned.

"It's true that we normally don't let anyone other than the captain and Lieutenant Awashima through outside regular hours without the captain's authorisation, but after that Aoki Tadao psychokinesis incident when Fushimi-san needed to urgently question the suspect at night, the captain issued a standing order giving Fushimi-san free access – and Fushimi-san can bring in whoever he needs to do his job," the other guard revealed. "Tonight, he's brought a whole bunch of equipment with him and he's already been in there a couple of hours. We've heard some drilling and hammering too. Not sure why he needs to do it alone, though – he said it was confidential, and we're not to go near that cell, but to just send you through to him when you arrived. By the way, he looks like absolute _hell_ , so good luck with his mood, Zenjou-san!"

Zenjou strode swiftly through the main wing and the left wing, making his way to the last cell in that row, where he found Fushimi waiting for him – behind the locked door.

"Fushimi-san?" Zenjou spoke, curious as to why his third in command was looking out at him from inside the cell, through the barred viewing slot. He could only see part of Fushimi's face, but what he could see of it backed up the guard's comment – he looked like hell. In fact, he looked to be on the point of collapse.

"Ah, Zenjou-san," Fushimi said in a voice that somehow sounded amused and sardonic even through the sheer exhaustion evident in its timbre. "Are you prepared to pull another long shift right now?"

On a regular day, if posed with such a question, Zenjou might have rumbled something largely unpleasant – especially to someone he had no love for, like Fushimi. But there was _something_ in Fushimi's look and voice and this whole situation that had his instincts afire, and at once, he replied: "Whatever it takes to catch this Nagato guy, I'll do it."

"Good," Fushimi choked out, quite breathlessly. "I knew I could count on you."

"What do you need me to do?"

"I've installed a bolt and locked the door from the inside, and blocked it off with artificial aura too. So no one can come in. What I need you to do is just sit out there and wait for me to tell you to alert the captain, Lieutenant Awashima and anyone ready to be dispatched to where I tell them to go to catch Nagato. I don't know how long I'll take to lure him out and pinpoint his location – maybe an hour, maybe all night – but I'll do it, and I need you to be ready at any time to call for, run for, yell for… I don't care… just get a special squad team out there to catch him once I say when and where."

"Fushimi-san, why not tell the captain what you're planning from the start? Or have a squad on standby now?"

Fushimi grinned at him through the viewing slot, slightly maniacally, before he said with a tired laugh: "Because they'll try to stop me before I succeed. For someone as unpopular as me, I actually can't think of anyone else in Sceptre 4 who isn't soft-hearted enough to try to save me at the expense of catching Nagato."

"But you think I won't?"

"Of course you won't. You're honourable and responsible enough to do whatever it takes to catch this dangerous Strain or whatever he's turning into now, no matter if it kills me."

"Simply because I was the one who killed Habari Jin?" Zenjou asked, his voice hard.

The manic smile returned, and a gleam of those black-framed glasses shimmered at Zenjou before the smug, drained response came through the door: "Not merely that. Of course you won't stop me from doing what needs to be done, because you're the only one who detests me enough not to mind if I drop dead in the process of doing it."

"Fushimi-san…"

"Because you think _I_ should have died instead of Kusuhara Takeru, don't you, Zenjou-san?"


	19. Fragmentation And Reinforcement

**Fragmentation And Reinforcement**

Cruelty. He'd had to dig deep for it to bait Nagato online. Then the shaping of the frequencies his mind was putting out – short bursts would work – a bit at a time using both crystals. Twenty minutes had been the limit for the Gold clan testers, but short bursts would keep him going. Weeks… it would take weeks to shape the brainwaves like Muruta, but with the combined aura from the crystals… he could manage it in hours. Just a little – only just enough to connect for a moment and lure him where he needed him to be.

It felt like this had been going on for a lifetime. But it was only a day.

Short bursts.

In between, as much cruelty as he could summon.

Using Yamakawa Mirai's name would do it. And an animated illustration of a woman leaping from a tall building. With unkind, brutal words added. Summoning the phantom of _that man_ helped him find the most cutting taunts. _Good for nothing. A waste of human cells. Should never have been born. Thought she could fly, did she?_

Sticking all that harshness onto a temporary site he'd opened (and even through the coldness he forced around him like a cloak as he did it, he hoped Yamakawa Mirai's parents would never see it).

Short bursts… more fine-tuning… just a little…

Setting up his trap, starting up the pin-and-infect programme he'd used on Neko and inspired by the Green king, another short burst with more refining of the frequency… very nicely done, the analyst's data gave him everything he needed to do this brainwave shaping… one more burst…

God, it felt like forever… wait… god… what was it about… oh yes, of course, the other god could destroy everything, couldn't it…?

 _Focus! Compartmentalise and focus, Fushimi Saruhiko!_ He mentally yelled at himself to snap out of the wandering thoughts, which were hitting him with greater frequency now. Night. It was night. Dark. Wonder what Mikoto-san thought while he'd been locked up in one of these cells. Totsuka-san, probably. What time…? It felt like forever…

 _Focus!_

He forced himself to remember what it had been like in the days when he had wielded red and blue aura, and had visualised how to block off his private thoughts using the red in an attempt to keep Munakata out of the most personal recesses of his heart. It probably hadn't worked. Ridiculous to try to keep a king out – he'd never have kept Mikoto-san out if the latter had ever bothered to try getting into his head – and he hadn't kept Munakata out very well but at least he'd tried and developed some kind of strategy and some idea of how this sort of thing ought to be done… damn, he was rambling.

Red separate from blue.

Compartmentalise.

Focus.

Using his old red-versus-blue technique, he hid his traps and his plans and his intentions behind the "red" screen now, drawing on the full power of both crystals – this was _killing_ him – while using the "blue" to _connect_ with that matching brainwave he could sense out there, somewhere, pointing it towards the site with the cruel messages about Yamakawa Mirai.

It felt like aeons had passed… how long…?

Focus. Remember. Not long. Only 15 minutes since his conversation with Zenjou-san through the viewing slot:

 _"Fushimi-san, you're right that I am not particularly fond of you. And you are correct about my being ready to sacrifice a great deal to do what must be done for the clan. But you're deeply mistaken if you think I'm callous enough to let a fellow clansman die just like that for the purpose of catching one suspect."_

 _"Don't you want to send me on my merry way to hell like a sacrifice to appease Kusuhara? I'm now the age he was when he died, you know."_

 _"Third in command or not, you're a kid, that's all you are. And you're saying this to provoke me, so I won't allow it to work. Besides, use your bloody head,_ sir _– sending you on your merry way to hell won't appease the boy, nor will it bring him back, so that's that."_

 _"Zenjou-san, I'm horribly disappointed in you."_

 _"Carry on being disappointed – I don't give a shit. I'm giving you 20 minutes, do you hear, Fushimi-san? I'm giving a good guess that by the time you summoned me, you were already pretty close, so I'm not giving you more time than that. Twenty minutes."_

"…shimi-san! Fushimi-san! Stay awake!" Zenjou was pounding on the door now, glaring ferociously at him through the slot. "Don't you dare die on me!"

"… hnn… yeah – yeah, I hear you," he mumbled, and rallied.

"Focus, Fushimi-san!" Zenjou took the word right out of his head.

Fifteen of those minutes were up… and he was close… really close… _come closer, Nagato Hideyoshi…_

There he was.

 _Got you._

"Zenjou-san!" Fushimi shouted with what felt like his last reserves of physical strength.

"I'm here. What's his location?"

"AJB apartments, Kamiochiai, Shinjuku-ku – have the captain and lieutenant send teams out now! I'm holding him there!"

He heard Zenjou sprinting away, talking urgently into his phone at the same time – Awashima, probably, or maybe Munakata directly.

If they hurried, they could reach his apartment in maybe half an hour.

He only needed to hold on until they got there.

It felt like forever.

…

He screamed. Who had done this? Who _dared_ to do this? Mirai… oh, Mirai… who would be so cruel…? _Mirai, when the god awakens, I'll destroy this person, I'll wreck the world, and I'll see you again, but I will make this person die a thousand deaths for this…_

Who would do this?

He screamed again at the outrage of how Mirai's memory was being desecrated, and he felt powerful, and infuriated, and he wanted revenge. His god of wrath would drive him to vengeance.

He would kill them all.

He wept.

 _Oh god, Mirai… how cruel…_

After all his months of caution and wariness, he charged, blind with grief and fury, into the fray.

…

Munakata didn't allow himself to sigh out loud. The exhaustion running through the ranks was disheartening enough for his clan. He didn't need Tsunado and Yano, who were driving him back from the meeting with the Cabinet members and the prime minister, to hear it too and have their spirits further sunk.

But he was sighing inside. The leaders of the country were worried about the state of things. The Gold clan was still keeping quiet about the true nature of His Excellency's absence, while to them, the Blue clan looked increasingly ragged at the edges trying to keep the superpowered criminals and other Jungle-copycat groups at bay.

They were nervous about whether anyone was actually still powerful enough to stop Strains on the wrong side of the law, and fretting over all these unsettling stories reaching their ears about ordinary humans going insane while developing more-than-human abilities.

 _What are the clans doing about all this?_ It was the demand of the day.

Munakata had calmed them by sticking to the facts and steering them away from useless emotional upset. He had outlined what action had been taken in every case, how the subjects in all those cases had been treated and rehabilitated, and how the clans were cooperating to capture the culprit behind these cases.

The politicians were also concerned about what would happen if His Excellency never returned. What would the Gold clan represent then? What would their relations with the clan be? Would it become an ordinary corporation with numerous holdings and interests? Or should the members be subsumed into the government ministries dealing with trade and industry, science, and health?

Also, hadn't there been an understanding between the Gold and Blue clans, ever since His Excellency's disappearance, that Munakata was to be in charge of the Gold clan? What was his view about the clan? And as for the Blue clan, without special powers, shouldn't Sceptre 4 personnel be absorbed into the regular and military police forces, and the organisation relegated to history?

Choosing not to reveal too much about the artificial aura project, the fact that the powers of the slate were still in existence, or the true extent of the danger from the other god, Munakata outlined the situation briefly: The clans did still have powers that they were rapidly developing – and these powers were not possible for ordinary humans to wield. Also, they had only just discovered the possible existence of another source of power that could well be hostile to humankind, and only the clans and their allied Strains would be able to take on this new power if it should come to consciousness.

"I say this not as a king attempting to cling to my clan, but as the head of an organisation that has seen what manner of widespread disorder may be inflicted on society when unexpected powers wreak havoc on the world, and there are either no existing mechanisms in place to tackle it, or the existing mechanisms have their hands tied. The powers that we are developing may well result in clans that have no kings, but that is nothing to me now. The combat experience of Sceptre 4 – whether its captain is a king or not – and the vast knowledge and research of the Timeless Palace – whether its next leader is a king or not – must be kept well positioned to take on the new forces that may arise to destroy society as we know it. Even other clans, that may not be reflected in the charts of official organisations of this country, play a far more important role than could ever be reflected on paper, in terms of social cohesion and their accumulation of the wisdom of the ages."

His speech and earlier counterarguments seemed to have staved off their most aggressive questions for the time being. But he was torn to some extent. The kings and clans were of greatest relevance in times of chaos, but he did not want chaos in society. The powers from the artificial crystals – and thus, the kings and clans – would be most needed if this other god that Nagato Hideyoshi was synchronising with should wake up fully. (Or if other ancient gods, sealed away, had also been jolted into semi-consciousness as a result of the worldwide aura reverberations from the destruction of the Dresden Slate.)

But Munakata did not want to see such terror. He wanted a world in which people could be safe, and live orderly lives. He wanted peace.

He wanted a place where he could be with Fushimi.

Speaking of whom… he would have to find a way to declare to the rest of his clan, in the interest of disclosure and transparency, what their relationship was now. It would be tricky, but it would have to be done.

The car was turning down the road leading up to the main gate of headquarters, and he wondered if Fushimi was back from the lab yet. He was just lifting his phone to text him when four cars from Sceptre 4 shot out through the gate and sped past his own – from what he saw in those few seconds, it appeared that Akiyama and Benzai were in one, Kamo and Doumyouji in the next, and several men from the regular swordsmen's unit in the other two.

At the same moment, a text was incoming from Awashima, but his phone rang before he could read the text. The call was from Zenjou Gouki. How strange. Why would Zenjou-san be contacting him at this hour?

Munakata answered the call, and in the next few seconds, he felt as if all his blood had suddenly chilled in his veins.

…

Shrieking, twisting, clawing, writhing, and more malice than he had ever directly sensed. It was different from the rage of the Red clan's kings. Different even from the wickedness of the most recent Colourless king. Suoh Mikoto's wrath had been an instinctive, natural destructiveness with no calculation behind it – until Totsuka-san's death, at least – and no specific target before it. And the Colourless king's mischief had been petty, murderous and evil but with no coherent grand scale to it. However, this – this fury going through impossible contortions at the other end of his programme – at the business end of the trap he'd set – was channelling ire from the personal grief and disgust of Nagato Hideyoshi, and also letting through the cracks the massive, world-ending hatred and anger of the enraged god.

Fushimi had never felt anything like it. It shocked him out of his descent into rambling insanity for a moment, but not for long. It was sucking him back into the spiral – it drove him bats to think that he _knew_ this was happening – that it was dragging him back into the mental abyss – yet he couldn't do a thing to stop his mind from tumbling.

 _Focus!_

Hold on to Nagato – that was all he had to do.

But it was so hard… the abyss was yawning… and before him, a slippery slope… what did Mikoto-san do in his cell to keep himself from going mad? Mikoto-san talked to the Colourless king here, did he not? Mikoto-san and Munakata… their faces so close, Munakata so intent on being close to him, with such intensity… fire, explosions, then Awashima helpless in front of the gate before the advancing Red king…

 _So much wrath… so easy to just let it take him… so easy…_

Banging, slamming, shattering sounds in the physical realm dragged his attention back from the brink, and he saw Zenjou-san's face through the slot. He was shouting something at him. Something… what was it…?

"…the door! Fushimi-san! Open the door! Can you hear me? We've sent out teams to Nagato's location, and Lieutenant Awashima is overseeing operations from here. Are you able to open the door?"

Fushimi stared, not really processing the words. He understood them on a bare semantic level, but they weren't penetrating his mind. What was Zenjou-san saying? Was this how Misaki felt whenever Fushimi deliberately talked over his head…?

 _Ha. Misaki. He'd probably cry rivers when Fushimi was dead… not that he wanted him to cry…_

No, no crying.

Door. Oh yes, the door.

"Fushimi-san!" It was Hidaka now. "Fushimi-san, are you able to unbolt the door?"

Fushimi stared at Hidaka, and shook his head. He knew he should be shaking his head. But why? Oh of course. He couldn't. Bloody idiots. How was he to use every ounce of his strength to keep his aura claws sunk into Nagato and unbolt the door too?

"I don't think he can," he heard Hidaka say outside the cell.

"Fushimi-san said he not only bolted the door physically, but also put up an artificial aura barrier," Zenjou was rumbling now. "Even if we break the physical lock, there's the other."

"Dammit! He's not looking good, Zenjou-san. He's going to die if we don't stop him!" Hidaka sounded frantic.

Idiot. Stopping him was exactly what he didn't want to happen. At least Zenjou-san had given him 20 minutes. Hidaka would have squealed to Awashima within two seconds.

Idiots, all. Bloody soft-hearted idiots. Even Zenjou-san, whom he'd counted on to hate him enough to let him rot so long as he produced Nagato.

 _I'll skin you alive and rend you limb from limb!_

Another shriek. Paralysing grief.

Then it was followed by wrath beyond words powering through the cracks Nagato was leaving as he fell apart emotionally. The vast, cosmic wrath of an angry god. Rage that would end not only humans, but even smite worlds beyond this… so much hatred…

 _That man_ was leering at him from beyond the grave. _I'll see you again soon, my little monkey. Very, very soon, you'll be mine forever…_

A strangled scream tried to tear its way out of Fushimi's throat, but he was too drained to give it any lung power.

 _No! Not you!_

 _You'll come to me, or that god in his wrath will raise me from the dead – either way, I'll be right beside you soon, my baby monkey…_

Somewhere deep, deep inside Fushimi's disintegrating hold on reality, he knew that it was himself digging up his own worst fears – and that he would defy all the demons of hell before letting _that man_ near him again. And that the wrathful god was chafing at the bit to _destroy_ all, not _raise_ anyone from the dead.

Yet, and yet, reality was slipping away, hope was slipping away, he was _so tired_ , and the terrifying thoughts continued to eat at him. He would be forgotten, folded away like the mattresses and duvet they had folded up this morning, leaving no evidence of what had happened in the night – and now, there would be no chance of anything more ever happening between then again…

 _The god of wrath will raise me from the dead, and raise Suoh Mikoto from the dead – and in a world with Suoh Mikoto in it, Munakata Reisi would never look at you again, little monkey. Yata Misaki would have no time to spare to be friends or a brother to you. Haha! "Brothers!" How charming! But your "brother" won't look at you with Suoh Mikoto in his field of view, my little Saru…_

Fushimi tried to scream the monster away again, but nothing came out of his mouth except the breath of despair.

…

Hidaka felt completely helpless. He was desperate to do something, but he seemed utterly useless here. Along with Zenjou-san and Gotou a minute earlier, and then on his own, he'd battered the cell door repeatedly with his body, then his sabre, and a heavy wooden bench. He and Gotou also tried frantically to summon aura using the second-generation crystals the Gold clan head researcher had distributed to some of them yesterday to practise with, but none of them in Sceptre 4 had come anywhere close yet to producing any sustained or workable power. Oh god, they needed the captain – they needed Captain Munakata here _now_ , or Fushimi-san was going to _die_.

Then, blessedly, he heard the captain's voice, and rapid footsteps, and the voices of Zenjou-san and Lieutenant Awashima bringing the captain up to speed with the situation.

"Captain! Thank heaven! We can't–" Hidaka began even before they came into view.

Then the captain rounded the corner, and Hidaka couldn't find the voice or the words to continue, because he had never seen the captain look like this. Even in the most extreme crises Sceptre 4 had faced, Captain Munakata had always looked confident, or at least stoic. Even when a situation seemed dire, he might smile or look amused; if something tragic had occurred, he would look serious, but calm and steady. He had always looked controlled and contained in all emergencies and losses – from Kusuhara's death to the immediate aftermath of killing Suoh Mikoto to his losing the Dresden Slate, the life-and-death battle with the Grey king, and his near Damocles Down.

But this – this was nothing Hidaka had seen before. Not this agonising grimness his features were set into. Not the dark storm howling through his violet eyes that was cut with a blade-edge of fear – fear for Fushimi's fate. Outwardly, his bearing and calmness were the same as ever – but those eyes… the urgency of the storm in those eyes…

All Hidaka could do was to wordlessly hold his crystal out to his king for him to use, because he and Gotou had failed to use it, and there was no further need for words from them.

Munakata received the crystal from Hidaka with a tight smile that Hidaka wanted to scream at him not to make. _Don't smile, Captain – you don't_ have _to smile – I know… I know how you feel – I can see it – for the first time since I met you I can_ read _your emotions in your eyes…_

"Fushimi-san installed a bolt on the door from the inside, and has also barricaded the door with artificial aura," Zenjou was continuing his update. "Hidaka and Gotou helped me to break the bolt, but the aura forcefield is something else. From what I can see through the slot, Fushimi-san seems to have rigged a contraption that draws on the power from the imbued riot shields that were used to defend against the attackers at Daiichi Universal Corporation."

"Then the aura barricade behind the door is formed from the power of first-generation crystals," the captain said grimly. "I can break that using this second-generation stone. But you said there was more, Zenjou-san?"

"Yes. After he gave me Nagato's location and knew that the alert had been raised, he also erected an aura barrier all around himself right where he's sitting on that bench," Zenjou-san confirmed. "He was adamant about not being interrupted."

"First things first," Munakata stated decisively. "The door."

Hidaka watched in awe as the captain immediately activated strong white aura through the crystal that Hidaka and the others had failed to do anything with, imbued his whole self with it, unsheathed his sabre and sent the aura into the weapon too, then struck a blow with it that sent the door swinging into the cell and crashing against the side wall.

"Fushimi-kun!" Captain Munakata called out urgently as he entered the cell.

Hidaka and Gotou trailed into the small space behind the captain, Lieutenant Awashima and Zenjou-san. Fushimi-san was seated on the built-in bench-cum-bed that ran along the far wall in every cell. Before him was a small desk he must have dragged into the cell from one of the barracks offices, and on it were a laptop he had both hands pressed to, a modem, router, a host of cables and other contraptions, all plugged into various portable power banks at his feet. Also at his feet was one of those aura-imbued shields, the same kind as had been used to keep the door so securely barricaded – and it was linked to his ankle by a chain. Completely surrounding him and all his devices was a dome-shaped white barrier.

Lieutenant Awashima, who had been on two lines the whole time with Benzai (to convey orders and stay up to the minute about the teams sent out to apprehend Nagato) and with Fuse (who was helping Enomoto to work the surveillance systems upstairs to back up the teams from headquarters), put her hand over the base of her phone for a second to inform the captain: "Akiyama and Benzai will reach Kamiochiai within 20 minutes."

Captain Munakata nodded in acknowledgement, his eyes still exposing the storm raging deep within, then he stepped closer to Fushimi-san and the thick barrier around him. Even without much familiarity with the crystals and their auras, Hidaka already knew that this barrier was nothing like the aura demonstrated for them in the lab yesterday. It wasn't just second-generation aura – it was the dangerous combination the head researcher had mentioned to everyone yesterday. It was powerful aura produced by using both a second-generation and partially-customised third-generation crystal at the same time.

Very powerful and very strong – like the most potent clan aura – but also terribly deadly. The Gold clan testers had given up in sheer exhaustion after trying the combination for only 20 minutes and spent hours after that sleeping off the effects; heaven only knew how long Fushimi-san had been using this.

"Fushimi-kun, can you hear me?" the captain asked, pressing a hand against the barrier – and from the way his hand connected with it, Hidaka could tell it was like coming up against a slab of glass.

There was no response from Fushimi-san.

"During the 20 minutes I gave him, he occasionally lapsed into states when he seemed unable to hear me," Zenjou-san said.

"Fushimi-kun!" Captain Munakata called out again. "I need you to hear me, Fushimi-kun. I need you to look at me. I know I haven't lost you – I know you can come back from wherever you've gone – I know you can make your way back to me – listen to my voice – Fushimi-kun!"

Hidaka gasped as Fushimi-san finally, finally raised his eyes and looked at Captain Munakata. "You," he whispered through lips that looked parched, as if he'd been wandering for days through a blizzard.

"I hope you weren't expecting anyone else, Fushimi-kun," the captain smiled – the smile was still tight, but there was a light through the storm howling in his eyes now, Hidaka thought. "I wouldn't like to think you were waiting for anyone but me."

…

 _Come to me, my little monkey…_

No, no, no, no… get away from me!

 _Almost there, my little monkey – you'll be mine alone, for always…_

Get the fuck away from me.

 _All the things I want to do to you… I can't wait, baby Saru…_

"Can you hear me?"

What was that?

"Fushimi-kun!"

Who?

"I know I haven't lost you."

That's not… is it?

"I know you can come back to me from wherever you've gone… I know you can make your way back to me… listen to my voice…"

I know you.

"Fushimi-kun!"

"You."

The ghost of _that man_ sank away, into the abyss, and Fushimi veered back from the edge, following the voice he trusted.

…

Munakata breathed normally for the first time in what felt like hours. Fushimi was not completely lost to him. He was aware enough of himself and his surroundings to respond to his voice, and make eye contact with him.

"You _were_ expecting _me_ , weren't you, Fushimi-kun?" he asked gently, keeping his hand on the barrier.

Fushimi gave what sounded reassuringly like a small huff.

"Good. Will you please remove this barrier so that I can help you?" Munakata asked. "I'm not going to try to break it – I already know I won't be able to do that easily using just this crystal when you erected it using those two in combination. Besides, breaking it could harm you, am I right?" The captain eyed the chain linking Fushimi's ankle to the glowing riot shield propped up between his feet and the bench.

"Don't," Fushimi murmured.

"Don't try to enter?" he sought clarification.

Fushimi nodded.

"Why not?" Munakata inquired.

"I've got him," Fushimi murmured, looking down again at where both his hands on the laptop were channelling a powerful stream of white aura and Strain inhibitor through his programme to where Nagato was. "He's still enough of a Strain, thankfully, to be stopped by this."

"And you think that if I enter I'll stop you?" Munakata asked.

Fushimi nodded again. A gasp escaped him, and he redoubled his aura – it was evident that he was engaged in a furious life-and-death struggle to hold on to Nagato.

"I won't stop you, Fushimi-kun. I promise," Munakata told him.

"Don't believe you. You're full of shit as always."

Munakata actually found himself laughing softly, under his breath, a little bitterly but also with some of the genuine amusement that Fushimi alone seemed capable of drawing out of him. "It's true – I've been cunning enough to have deceived you a hundred times – but this time, I give my word that I won't stop you. Lower the barrier, and I'll channel my aura into you – it will keep you going a little longer."

"No."

"You won't last much longer at this rate."

Awashima moved the phone away from her mouth to say: "Akiyama is five minutes away."

"Fushimi-kun, do you hear that?" Munakata asked. "They're five minutes from the building, but they'll have to search the whole building too. Please. Please let me in – on my honour, I won't stop you or pull you away."

Fushimi looked back up at him, suspicious and hesitant, but something in his blue eyes was relenting, just a little, and Munakata knew he was considering it seriously. There was some hope –

Suddenly, Fushimi groaned and focused all his concentration on what he was doing. "He's… fuck… he's really fighting me… "

"Let me through to you, please," Munakata pressed against the barrier.

"Can't – I've rigged it – the shield, once switched on, automatically draws aura from me."

"To create the barrier?"

"Hnn… yeah. Can't spare a hand, can't ease up on the aura. Sorry… hnnnngh… shit…"

Fushimi literally could not spare a hand from wrestling with Nagato to switch off the shield, which was rigged to keep the barrier up. And the shield, the crystals, the power banks – everything – was behind the barrier.

"I – damn it – I can't… bloody bastard! _I'm not letting you get away!_ "

Fushimi forced more aura into his programme, but he was panting heavily now, sweating profusely and heaving. Munakata felt the terror of wondering if Fushimi was going to have a heart attack, or if his brain or other organs would fail right here before his eyes.

"Fushimi-kun!" he called out, pounding on the barrier. "Look at me!"

His clansman did not – or could not – lift his eyes or his head, his whole being bent towards the laptop on which his programme was running. Out of desperation, Munakata activated the aura of the crystal he held and tried to penetrate the barrier without actually shattering it – shattering it would surely damage Fushimi badly in some way – but perhaps he could find a way to slip through?

No. Nothing would work. It was like trying to walk through a stone wall. They could really use someone like Hirasaka Douhan now, but it was also possible that even she might not be able to pass through an aura-generated barrier, as opposed to an ordinary physical structure.

Fushimi groaned again and hunched over his laptop.

Munakata tested the barrier again and made no headway. _No, please, no. Don't let me lose you like this…_

In utter desperation, Munakata opened all his senses, and _reached out_ for what he had been refusing to reach out for. The truth was, he had closed off his senses once he had felt betrayed by the powers from the slate, but something within him knew that he too could draw on them for help just as Anna had done to save Yata Misaki.

He only had to ask.

And reach out.

And he did.

"If you're here – and I _know_ you're here," he spoke out loud, looking up and above and around him. "I need your help."

The others present – Awashima, Zenjou, Hidaka, Gotou – looked bewildered. They probably wondered if he too was losing his mind.

Sparing no time for explanations to them, he continued. "Please – _I need your help_. Will you lend me your power? I need your help to save the life of someone very dear to me."

He had felt betrayed by them, and he had not wished to deal with them. But for Fushimi – for Fushimi, he would do anything.

Unlike Anna, Munakata had no power to sense the god and demon's thoughts and truth and emotions. However, what he did sense was an overwhelmingly positive response at the same time as he felt the massive rush into his whole being of a great force that was very familiar in some ways and very strange in others. In an instant, he was fully imbued with the aura from the powers of the slate – aura in a multitude of colours, just like Anna had described. With it, he separated the particles of the barrier like a curtain and stepped inside.

The others gasped as he walked through what had previously kept him out, and Fushimi jerked his head up, startled. Munakata crouched beside him at once, reassuring him: "I promise I won't stop you. Let me give you more strength instead. Will you let me do that?"

Fushimi stared at him, eyes wild, brow dripping with sweat, his whole body trembling – but at last he nodded, giving permission.

Munakata climbed onto the bench behind Fushimi and sat close, right up against him, pressing his body to Fushimi's back – an echo of last night, in his bedroom, flashed in his memory – and caging his hips and thighs with his own legs. He wrapped his arms around Fushimi's chest, and _pushed_ the aura from the powers of the slate into him, using them as he had once used his Blue king's aura, filling Fushimi with renewed strength, dragging him back from the brink.

"Feel that, Fushimi-kun?" Munakata whispered into his ear, tenderly. "Feel it – use it – don't let me control what you're doing – I can't, anyway, as I don't know what needs to be done – so just let me lend you this strength, which in turn is lent to me. You said I needed time to decide if I wanted to be friends with them – well, look – I've decided. We're friends."

Fushimi was still panting, but not as hard as before, and he was slowly drawing himself up from his hunched posture. "About time," he murmured.

"Mm, yes, definitely. About time," Munakata agreed fondly, wrapping his arms more closely around Fushimi as he straightened up slightly. "Have you still got Nagato?"

"Uh-huh. Right there where I want him," Fushimi said in a whisper of a voice that sounded too tired – much too tired.

"And you're right here where I can help you," Munakata said gently. "That's right, Saruhiko, just keep drawing on the powers I'm channelling into you. Perfect. You're doing so perfectly."

Munakata planted a kiss on Saruhiko's temple, not caring that they had an audience. If this was the way the clan would learn how much Fushimi – no, _Saruhiko_ – meant to him, so be it. He pressed another kiss to the cold, clammy skin, lifting a hand to brush that soft hair off his face and wipe the sweat from his brow.

"Akiyama's searching the building now," Awashima reported.

"Hear that, Saruhiko?" Munakata murmured softly. "They're almost there. You and I just need to hold on together a while longer."

"Mm."

He streamed more aura into his programme as the struggle with Nagato intensified, and his breathing sped up again. Munakata braced him more firmly.

"There we are – I think Akiyama's in, don't you?" Munakata asked.

Saruhiko nodded, focusing on what he could sense at the other end of his programme. "They're subduing him," he murmured. "There's no more fight in him."

Outside the barrier, Awashima nodded and said in relief: "They've got Nagato."

"All right, Saruhiko, I think you can let go now," Munakata said, kissing him on the temple again. "Just ease back… that's right… just like that."

Saruhiko pulled back from the programme, slid his hands off the laptop, and leaned right back against Munakata, letting his head roll onto his king's shoulder. Holding him with one arm, Munakata reached down and switched off the shield, taking the barrier down. Saruhiko was panting against Munakata's neck, and the others were stepping forward now to help in whatever way they could.

Hidaka undid the chain Saruhiko had wrapped around his ankle to link himself to the shield, while Gotou moved the desk away, and Zenjou cleared the crowd of swordsmen who had jammed the doorway.

"Wait," Saruhiko rasped at Gotou before he could shut down the laptop. "Stop – there's one more thing…"

"Can't it wait, Fushimi-san?" Gotou asked in concern.

"No."

Saruhiko reached for the laptop, navigated his way to the site where he had put up the cruel, taunting images and words about Yamakawa Mirai, deleted all the content, and blocked the blank site too, to be safe.

"Don't want her parents and friends seeing that…" Saruhiko muttered, slurring, his voice barely audible now.

"Saruhiko, are you all right?" Munakata asked urgently, feeling a change in the tension of the muscles in the body of the younger man. "Saruhiko!"

His lover and third in command slumped limply back against him, his breathing suddenly shallow, his eyes closed.

At once, Munakata stood up, scooped Saruhiko into his arms, and hurried out of the cell towards the infirmary.


	20. Coming Round

**Coming Round**

"The inhibitors are working well so far," a masked Gold researcher determined as he checked a series of readings on a handheld device. He and the rest of the medical team handling this case stood outside the door of the room deep in the basement of the Nanakamado research facility where Nagato Hideyoshi was held. "The subject isn't able to use his Strain powers at all."

"He hasn't calmed down since he was brought in," Dr Ozaki observed through the viewing slot, double-checking visually that the power-inhibiting chains which held Nagato down to the padded examination table were not giving him enough leeway to hurt himself further.

The masked clansman nodded. "Perhaps a vapour sedative is called for here."

"I think that would be best," she agreed.

Dr Ozaki did not like to think of the room as a cell, and she disliked being down here in the lowest levels of the rebuilt facility, corresponding to the old domain where Mizuchi Koushi had once all but reigned supreme. She didn't want to echo Mizuchi's deeds in any way. Yet, here she was, overseeing the treatment of a shackled Strain struggling to free himself, shrieking out his psychological and emotional pain, cursing them for holding him here, and violently refusing medical help.

Then again, there was more at stake than her comfort level. This man was not only her patient now, but also a criminal apprehended by the Blue clan. Transferred to the Gold clan for treatment, he was to undergo carefully calibrated exposure to stimuli that would steer him away from continuing to connect mentally and spiritually with an angry supernatural being of unknown origin who could very well create twisted "kings" and clans of its own to destroy the world.

"Start with filtering 20ml of the vapour sedative into the room," she instructed one of her assistants. "See if he settles down first before we use more. Then start him on the auditory as well as the subliminal visual stimuli to break his mental link with the unknown power."

It was imperative that they begin with subliminal visual training as well as aural stimuli that would begin to reshape his brainwaves and draw him away from the connection he had established with this "god". Only when they had disconnected that telepathic link could they begin the long-term, painful process of counselling Nagato to help him cope with his grief at losing the woman he loved, and rehabilitate him gradually by guiding him to see that he was not the only one who had risked losing everything in the war over the Dresden Slate. It might take years. Throughout every second of these potential years of treatment, his Strain powers would have to be suppressed to prevent him from possibly slipping out of confinement right under their noses.

There was every chance that they might never be able to release him – not if he was going to run right back to what he had been doing for the past few months. So it would be a long slog, but she was prepared to oversee it so that she could be certain that he was being properly treated, and not abused or exploited the way he would have been when Mizuchi ran the show.

For now, she would leave the sedation and initial steps of the treatment to her assistants. There was another urgent matter for her to attend to at present, because it seemed that in his efforts to trap and stop Nagato, Fushimi Saruhiko had almost sent himself to an early grave, and she would now have to see whether he had sustained any permanent damage from his actions.

…

"What?" Weismann gasped into the phone, sitting bolt upright on his futon. "He did _what_?"

The noise from the ringtone and the Silver king's sudden movements had awoken and displaced Neko, who had (as she so often did, despite being advised by Kuroh not to do such inappropriate things) curled up beside him to sleep, heedless of the fact that it really wasn't socially acceptable in this day and age for a 16-year-old girl to sneak into the bed of a 90-year-old man.

On his other side, Kuroh looked worriedly at what he could see on the screen of the phone pressed against the side of Weismann's face. The name indicated it was Kusanagi-san who was calling.

Kuroh could make out a few key words from the tinny sounds escaping the phone into the silence of the Academy Island dorm room. "Fushimi… Nagato… synchronised… trapped… danger… almost died…"

"And the Blue king really…?" Weismann was asking now.

More bare essentials reached Kuroh's ears in the form of utterances that included "… asked for help… desperate… answered… saved…"

"How is Fushimi-san now?" was Weismann's next question.

Kuroh could hear the reply more clearly this time, as he scooted closer to his king: "We don't know yet. Seri-chan will let me know once she has more information."

"Did Anna-chan hear from the powers?"

"Yes. For now, she says, they sense that the other god has ceased to continue its process of awakening, so at least for the time being, there's one less problem for us."

"I see. Thank you for keeping me informed, Kusanagi-san. I hope Fushimi-san will recover fully."

He ended the phone call, and Kuroh, Neko and Hieda all asked at the same time: "What happened?"

Weismann looked around at them, then said: "Fushimi-san has succeeded in his plan to trap Nagato Hideyoshi, who has just been arrested by the Blue clan, and immediately transferred to the Gold clan for psychological and medical treatment. And Anna-chan hears from our god and demon that as a result of losing Nagato as a conduit, the other god may be returning to its state of slumber. But Fushimi-san took an enormous risk by using the artificial crystals in a dangerous way that he shouldn't have, and he himself has been hospitalised. We don't know whether or how well he will recover. However, he would certainly have died in the process of capturing Nagato if the Blue king hadn't asked for help from the god and demon from the Dresden Slate – and they gave him the help he needed to save his clansman."

"Which means that even the Blue clan now…" Kuroh began, as Neko blinked in confusion.

"Yes, Kuroh," Weismann replied. "Even the Blue clan now may be ready to make peace with the powers from the slate. If Fushimi-san pulls through, then I think I know what direction the future of the kings and clans will take."

…

In one moment of semi-consciousness, he heard indistinct voices above and around him while he felt a pair of strong, reassuring arms wrapped about him, and he had no doubt at all that Munakata was holding him.

In another moment of half-waking, his eyes fluttered open to see Misaki slumbering in a chair beside his bed, and he knew even without the clarity of vision through his glasses that his best friend's brow was set in a deep frown and his cheeks were tear-stained. _Silly crybaby Misaki… don't shed tears for me till I'm dead, idiot…_

A split second of seeing Awashima leaning towards him, her usual cold features softened by a ridiculous blend of concern and annoyance. _Probably can't wait to be sure I'm not going to die so she can rip into me for sneaking around behind her back…_

A brief moment in which he couldn't peel his eyes open at all – he was so weak – but could feel a warm hand holding his, and he couldn't summon the strength even to squeeze that hand, but he knew it was Munakata without having to look.

Dr Ozaki, peering at him and flashing a light into his eyes. _Seriously – they sent for her too? No shit. Must be in bad shape…_

But at some point, he stopped fading out for hours between those seconds of consciousness, and his mind and spirit and all his senses at last seemed to sink firmly back into his body. It seemed it was time for him to wake up. Along with that moment, however, came a flood of pain, aches, and a general, diffuse discomfort that seemed to be all over his body and at the same time not in any particular spot.

Well, he'd felt worse before. Barely. Maybe being on the verge of death from blood loss after battling Gojou Sukuna in January edged this out by a shade, but it was close. His head throbbed horribly, exactly the way it did when he had a migraine, and attempting to move at all brought on a wave of nausea – which made him instinctively attempt to get up and grab a receptacle of some sort so he wouldn't puke all over the bed he was in – but this in turn brought on even more nausea and waves of pain from everywhere and nowhere. So he lay still, allowing only a tiny whimper to escape his throat, and breathed slow, careful breaths until the urge to vomit subsided.

"Fushimi-san, you're awake," an excited voice piped up somewhere to his left.

Fushimi waited a few more moments to ground himself from the appalling feeling of motion sickness before cracking his eyes open and turning his head very slowly in the direction of the voice. Even without his glasses, he could make out the flame-hued hair and solid frame of Doumyouji.

"We've been taking turns to keep an eye on you while you've been out," Doumyouji added cheerfully. "It's my shift now."

Fushimi croaked through a painfully dry throat: "Let me guess – I died and this is hell."

"Ahh… if Fushimi-san has recovered his usual sense of grouchiness, he can't be _that_ close to death," Doumyouji grinned – or at least, Fushimi assumed he was grinning, based on the slightly blurred general view he had of Doumyouji flashing his teeth. "I'll go get the captain and Ozaki-sensei at once!"

"Ozaki-sensei…? What?" Fushimi moaned, noticing only now that his left hand ached with the telltale stab of an IV drip.

Now somewhere in the vicinity of where Fushimi gathered the doorway was, Doumyouji answered brightly: "You're at the Nanakamado hospital, Fushimi-san. Ozaki-sensei has been watching over you really carefully for the last two days – she's here checking on you whenever she doesn't have to treat Nagato. And the captain's hardly left your side except when urgent meetings come up. He's here now, but he's discussing Nagato's rehabilitation with the doctors, the other kings, and the Rabbits. Also, Yata-san's been texting me non-stop for updates about your condition ever since Kusanagi-san forced him to go home after he visited yesterday."

"Two days…?" Fushimi groaned, covering his eyes with his right forearm. "I've been out for two days?"

"Hey, Fushimi-san," Doumyouji's voice took on a more serious tone. "We almost thought you weren't going to make it. Hidaka told me our clan's medics didn't think you'd survive. They had to resuscitate you in the infirmary, and rehydrate you like crazy even as they were rushing you to the hospital, because your temperature and heart rate were through the roof, and they were terrified you'd go into cardiovascular shock even before reaching Nanakamado. They stabilised you and got you here, but then Ozaki-sensei was worried that you'd literally fried your brain or something, and was scanning you for aneurysms and haemorrhaging and clots and whatnot – I know that firsthand cos I was here too just after we handed Nagato over, and you were scarily close to the edge, Fushimi-san. But you did a terrific job with Nagato, you know – when Akiyama, Benzai, Kamo and I broke into the apartment, he was literally stuck to the laptop he was using to try to hack into the website you'd created – he couldn't move. Slapping the Strain-inhibiting shackles onto him was a cinch."

Fushimi groaned again and couldn't find the strength to say anything. Presumably, Doumyouji must have left the room then and fetched the doctor, because some minutes later, Ozaki-sensei was by his bedside, examining his eyes and shining a light too into the inside of his mouth while a nurse stuck a thermometer into his ear.

"Ow," Fushimi exhaled a faint protest when even the blunt, disposable latex cap-covered tip of the thermometer felt uncomfortable enough to worsen the pounding in his head.

"Where does it hurt, Fushimi-san?" Dr Ozaki asked.

"Where do I start?" he moaned.

"Do you have a headache?"

"The mother of them all."

"That's not surprising, considering how far you taxed the limits of all the blood vessels in it," the doctor told him frankly. "But you are very, very lucky that you didn't rupture any of them. Perhaps your skill with wielding artificial aura helped to mitigate the effects of the brainwave-shaping you forced yourself through – scans show no signs of brain-cell damage so far. But at the same time, your extremely unwise combined use of two generations of crystals put such a strain on your psyche and body that I don't even know where to begin to tell you all the potential harm you could have done to every one of your organs, not to mention your sanity. You truly are fortunate that so far, all tests indicate everything is functioning normally on a physical level. And your ability to converse normally with me suggests I won't have to lock you up in a padded room any time soon."

"Ah, but I've always been borderline nuts, so how would you know the difference?" he murmured in an attempt at humour.

"I think I have _some_ expertise in that area," she replied ironically. "Well, for now, your temperature is back to normal, your hydration levels are good, and based on the last time we checked this morning, all your organs are functioning. We'll need to keep monitoring you in other areas we can't test for, but at the moment, I do not think you'll be dying from this experience just yet. Keep me informed about anything that seems unusual for you – if you lose your sense of smell or taste, for example, or if you notice changes to your vision, or see or hear things that others around you can't. In the meantime, I'll prescribe you painkillers for the headache, and will instruct the nursing staff to begin serving you soft foods this afternoon."

"When can I be discharged?" he asked.

"When Ozaki-sensei says you're ready to be," Captain Munakata's voice came from the doorway.

"Just bear with us for a day or two more, Fushimi-san," Dr Ozaki told him. "After that, I can release you on condition that you either remain in the Sceptre 4 infirmary for a few more days, or be on strict bed rest in your dormitory room."

"Ugh," was Fushimi's terse lament.

"I'll see you later, Fushimi-san," the doctor said briskly as she stepped away from his bed. "Over to you, Captain Munakata."

Fushimi began to ease himself slowly into a sitting position as Dr Ozaki left, but before he could do more than brace himself on his elbows, Munakata had put an arm around his back, propped up a few pillows behind him, and eased him carefully against them. And it seemed his king could still read his mind, because without having to ask or be asked, the captain handed him his glasses from the side table.

"Thanks," Fushimi whispered, slipping them on and seeing the room – and Munakata – come into focus. It made the pounding in his head slightly more bearable in some ways but worse in others.

Again, without having to be asked, the captain poured out a glass of water and handed it to him too. Fushimi received it, and took a grateful sip.

"Slowly now," Munakata cautioned as he sat down in the chair beside the bed. "Your stomach hasn't had anything in it for about 48 hours."

"Believe it or not, that's close to a normal state of affairs for me sometimes," Fushimi smirked.

He was trying to lighten the gravity of the medical emergency he'd been at the heart of, but Munakata didn't seem ready for that, because he frowned, and said seriously: "I should have kept a better eye on you."

"I'm not a child. I know what I'm doing. That wasn't – and this isn't – your responsibility," Fushimi said.

Once again, for the umpteenth time since they had met, it seemed like they were talking on two levels, about different things with different layers of meaning – and right now, they were talking both about the entirety of his time as a Blue clansman, as well as the most recent matter of his engaging Nagato solo.

"I'm sorry that I caused this much trouble – I don't want you to feel responsible for any of it – but I'm not sorry about doing what I knew how to do best to get my job done," he mumbled, resolving the layers by bringing the discussion firmly to the level of the most recent foolhardy thing he'd done, and bypassing all the years in which Munakata now belatedly felt he should have looked after him more carefully.

"It wasn't only _your_ job, you know, Saruhiko," Munakata answered gently.

Along with the jolt that came from realising what name Munakata had called him by – and remembering that he'd used it for the first time two days ago while holding him close and kissing him in front of the rest of their clan – Fushimi also saw with sudden clarity that Munakata wasn't angry with him for the crazy risk he'd taken, or disapproving of his going behind his back. No, he was worried – horribly, deeply worried – about Fushimi's health, about how close he'd come to losing him, about what he might do next that would put his life in unreasonable danger.

"But only I could do this part of it," he said as firmly as his little strength and the migraine-like throbs would allow. "You promised me, didn't you, that you wouldn't interfere with the way I get my job done?"

Munakata looked thoughtfully back at him and answered: "It is becoming harder and harder for me to keep that promise."

"I'm the one you'll send on the most dangerous missions because you know I can see them through – and you trust me – don't forget what you said to me in the office that night," Fushimi persisted. "You can't do any differently now – _especially_ now – because the rest of the clan needs to know that I'll be treated the same as I always was before. There was always all kinds of talk about us even when there was nothing going on, and it'll probably get worse now that the rumours have been confirmed."

"You might be surprised," Munakata smiled. "People talk feverishly when there are no solid facts to ground them, but when presented openly with the bare truth, they may find that there isn't as much to say about it."

"Still, you're the captain, and you have to treat all your clansmen objectively and fairly," Fushimi insisted, feeling slightly winded already. "When I'm back on my feet, employ me and deploy me like the wild card and hidden weapon you've always used me as on the job."

Munakata, noticing his shortness of breath, got up at once to take the glass of water out of Fushimi's hands and rearrange the pillows so that he could lie down. "You need a good deal more rest before you'll be in any state to argue with me," he said.

"I hate hospitals."

"You'll survive."

"Mm."

Fushimi closed his eyes and drifted off almost immediately.

When he next awoke, his head felt slightly better, and he was able to look around the room immediately to see that Munakata was no longer here, and Zenjou was the person seated near his bed, looking contemplatively at him.

"Zenjou-san," he murmured without trying to move or get up, only squinting to make sure he wasn't misidentifying him – no, it was definitely Zenjou, with those thin-framed glasses and the left jacket sleeve hanging empty.

"Do you need me to call for a nurse or anyone, Fushimi-san?" the man asked.

"No. Didn't know you were on the rota for keeping an eye on me."

"I wasn't, but I volunteered."

"Oh?" Fushimi's curiosity was roused, though he had a suspicion what this was about.

"We're all game pieces, all of us, Fushimi-san – you, me, the kings, even the supernatural beings who were in the slate," Zenjou stated gruffly without further preamble. "And Kusuhara was one too. Some game the universe is playing, eh, with pieces that can play themselves too? It may or may not be that Kusuhara died in your place back then – I couldn't say so with any certainty or justice. But he had a will to move himself around on that chess board as much as other powers had to move him around, and it's possible he'd do exactly the same thing if he could do it all over again. Whatever the truth may be, it isn't your responsibility to die to appease anyone, Fushimi-san. The clans have lost more than enough young ones – Blue, Red, Green, Gold – don't add yourself to the count."

"It's fine to hate me, you know, Zenjou-san," Fushimi murmured.

"I'll remember that when I'm next in the mood for hate," Zenjou rumbled, though it seemed to Fushimi that there was nothing sinister in his voice – nothing but a plain statement of facts.

…

"You're an idiot!" was Yata's first declaration to Saruhiko upon limping into the hospital room, complete with finger pointing and some arm flailing – his wounds were obviously healing well.

"But you love me anyway," Saruhiko snarked back.

"You could have _died!_ "

"Says the idiot who single-handedly took on a psychokinetically powered madman who skewered him. Literally."

"That was different!"

"How so?"

"My near-suicidal actions in that fight weren't pr-premeditated!"

"Ooh, Misaki has learnt another big word."

"Shut up! My mum's really worried about you and really upset too! She wanted to come but we both knew she'd smack you on the head for doing such a stupid thing, and goodness only knows your brain's battered enough as it is!"

"Ah."

"Don't ever do that again – don't ever do anything behind everyone's back that could get you killed _ever_ again!"

"Mm."

"Don't give me that 'Mm' shit."

"What can I say, Misaki? We both know my job revolves around dealing with dangerous people – and a lot of it has to be done behind everyone's back."

"Not your own king's back, moron! _Never_ behind your king's back!"

"What is all the excitement about?" Munakata asked, entering the room.

"Y-y-you… you're another one!" Yata spluttered, spinning around to face Munakata in the doorway. He could feel himself reddening and instinctively wanting to back away from the Blue king, but he was also upset enough to bravely say what he needed to say, as bluntly as he wished to say it: "You're another fool to be so easily outfoxed by Saruhiko – you _know_ perfectly well what he's like, how irresponsible he is with his own health, how sneaky he likes to be, and you didn't watch him!"

"Oi, Misaki, shut up!" Saruhiko snapped from the bed.

Ignoring him, Yata continued to address Munakata boldly: "You're supposed to be _good_ for Saruhiko! You're supposed to take care of him and not let him be the self-destructive idiot he always lapses into being. I-I-I _trusted_ you to look after him!"

"I don't need anyone to look after me!" Saruhiko protested irritably.

"Yes you do," said Yata and Munakata at exactly the same time.

"And you didn't do it!" Yata whirled about to accuse Munakata again. "You didn't look after him like you should have!"

"You're right, Yata-san."

"And you – y – _haah_?"

"You are quite right that I failed to look after Saruhiko well, and I apologise for that, Yata-san," Munakata said honestly, without a hint of artifice.

Several beats of silence from both Yata and Saruhiko followed, accompanied by plenty of gaping from Yata, after which he repeated " _Haah?_ " in absolute disbelief that the Blue king was _apologising_ to him – and in response to the stunning awareness of all the implications of Munakata's referring to his friend as "Saruhiko" that flew into Yata's mind and churned there.

"I'm sorry," Munakata reiterated. "I should have looked after Saruhiko much better. Although I cannot promise that he will never be in danger again, I can at least promise that I will do all I can to ensure that the risks he takes are more carefully calculated, and will persuade him to the best of my ability to keep me informed about every situation that poses higher-than-normal possibilities of critical impairment or death, so that I can help him assess how he may best emerge from it in one piece."

The last part was uttered with a meaningful glance at Saruhiko, one which Yata followed with his eyes and underscored with his own glare at his best friend.

"You're both unbelievable," Saruhiko grumbled.

But Yata was already turning his attention back to Munakata, frowning fiercely and growing redder in the face, then throwing down the gauntlet with these words: "You better do exactly as you've promised, Blue king. A-and if you aren't totally, totally good to Saruhiko, I-I'll… I'll… take him back!"

" _Haah?_ " It was Saruhiko's turn to gape in disbelief.

Munakata, however, smiled serenely but betrayed a mischievous gleam in his eyes as he answered: "I can assure you that I will treat Saruhiko very well, Yata Misaki-san. Besides, once the matchmaker has stolen the bride, he won't give the bride back."

"Matchm… the br… _What?!_ " Yata spluttered.

Saruhiko groaned, fell bonelessly back onto the mattress, and pulled the covers right up over his head.

…

Nagato was in emotional agony. Dr Ozaki could see that, even when the young man wasn't uttering a word. She could feel the waves of grief and loss and anguish rolling off him now that the persistent treatment they were giving him was slowly but surely drawing him away from the wrath of the god he had once awakened – the god that the Red king had informed them was returning to its state of unconsciousness.

The Silver king had said at the most recent meeting among the allied clans that the universe had many unknown elements to it that had been at war with one another for a long time, and this would perhaps not be the last time humanity was drawn into a conflict not entirely of its own making. Every war would have countless casualties, and at the close of this latest round, it seemed that Nagato Hideyoshi and the woman he loved had been the victims worst affected.

"There may be more to come," Adolf K. Weismann had said. "This god may reawaken for other reasons in the near or distant future, or other gods may rise to consciousness too. Let us prepare for that, and for now, let us try to heal Nagato."

The Red king had nodded in agreement, and the Blue king had not disagreed.

Healing Nagato would be her job. It would require patience and a great deal of gentleness. Maybe he would never recover completely, but if her medical treatment and the counselling she would ensure he went through could lessen his grief over time so that it became less raw and more bearable to him, then that was what she would do for him as her patient.

…

"Fushimi-san, is there anyone you would like us to bring here to visit you?" Akiyama asked discreetly, once they were left alone right after he had begun his shift to keep an eye on Sceptre 4's third in command.

They had calculated that the chances of any more attempts on the lives of clansmen or their families were far lower now that Nagato had been apprehended, but it was impossible to know if anyone else might have been engaged to harm the clans just before he'd been arrested. This wing of the Nanakamado hospital was already well secured by the Gold clan, so Sceptre 4 didn't want to go overboard, but knowing Fushimi-san's propensity for getting into life-threatening situations, the clan had decided it would be best to post at least one person here at a time.

"Of course not," Fushimi-san replied with some puzzlement. "Who would I like you to bring here to visit me? I don't even particularly want any of _you_ visiting me."

"Well, we know you've already had visits from Yata-san, but would you like us to keep anyone _else_ informed?"

"Like who?" Fushimi-san asked with even more bafflement.

Akiyama knew better than to mention Fushimi-san's mother, but he wasn't thinking about his family anyway – he was thinking of someone else. "Well, Fushimi-san, when Benzai and I stopped you off in Shizume City to run your errand before taking you to Nanakamado that day, there was that young lady…"

Fushimi stared at Akiyama, then his eyes widened, and he groaned: "Oh my god, you don't seriously think that I – _seriously_ , do you think I was having a woman on the side while…"

"Fushimi-san, I'm so sorry," Akiyama said hastily. "We thought… well, you _did_ come out of the apartment buttoning up your waistcoat, and we thought…"

"Great," Fushimi-san muttered. "So now everyone in Sceptre 4 thinks that I'm not only having a sordid affair with the captain, I'm also having a sordid roll in the hay with a bit on the side behind the captain's back?"

"No, no, no, Fushimi-san – Benzai and I didn't say anything about the woman to anyone…"

"I had to remove my coat and waistcoat in the apartment because of the bloody tight ventilation holes I had to crawl into," Fushimi muttered.

"Ventilation holes?"

"Oh forget it, I'm too tired to explain. Go ask Chitose You what the hell it was all about. Go away."

"Chitose You of Homra?"

"Mm," Fushimi-san mumbled from under the pillow he had pulled over his head.

"So that woman wasn't…"

"I'm _not_ having sex with her."

The pillow came briefly off Fushimi's head so the third in command could glare at Akiyama and state bluntly: "But the captain and I have indeed just started seeing each other, as you and the whole bloody clan should know by now. And I think it's time for me to ask you: Just how many have asked to leave Sceptre 4 now that they know?"

"Fushimi-san…"

"Just spit it out."

"Fewer than ten so far."

"I see."

"But even those few haven't stated unequivocally that they want to leave at once. I think they're waiting to see what the captain has to say about… him and you. Besides, almost everyone assumed for the longest time that…"

"They assumed wrongly."

"I know that, Fushimi-san."

"So it's not as if this is really news to them, is it?" Akiyama ventured a nervous smile, which Fushimi reacted to by pulling the pillow over his head again and repeating his order for him to go away and leave him alone.

Which Akiyama then had to apologetically respond to by saying that he wasn't allowed to leave for at least another two hours, causing Fushimi-san to tug the pillow even more tightly around his head, as if he wanted to shut the whole world out.


	21. Security

**Warning:** Gets lemony towards the end, so please avoid the last section if you'd rather not read it.

* * *

 **Security**

Unlike that first occasion kept under wraps, when the Silver, Red and Blue kings had met secretly in the commercial district, everyone now knew that the kings were here. It was among the most anticipated of meetings, for it would give the clans a clear direction for their future.

All Silver, Gold, Red and Blue clansmen had been briefed a week ago about the true nature of the powers that had once resided in the Dresden Slate, and why the kings of the past had seemed destined to make war with one another. The past week had also brought stability to the clans after the chaos wrought by Nagato and the assailants he had manipulated or hired, the uncertainty over the reliability of the powers freed from the slate, and what place the artificial aura from the lab-grown crystals would have in their lives.

With Nagato's arrest, all signs pointed to a return to slumber for the malicious god he had awoken. And thanks to the more-than-human powers demonstrated by the Blue and Gold clans in stopping the potential catastrophe, confidence in the clans had been restored – both within and without. Within, the clansmen were more secure about their future; without, there was no further talk from the country's leaders about disbanding Sceptre 4 and breaking up the Timeless Palace.

Now, the next step towards further clarity was being taken by the kings themselves, by initiating a discussion with the powers that had once been trapped in the slate.

"I wish to propose a future of peace among the clans, an end to the history of conflict among us," Weismann said to the people gathered in one of the event halls at Mihashira Tower, standing loosely in groups around the large space while Weismann took the stage at the front.

Present at the meeting were the Red king and her clan; the Blue king, his lieutenant, his third in command, all the members of the special ops squad, the squad leaders from the general swordsmen's division, and the head of the general affairs division; the Silver clan; and a group of senior Gold clansmen.

"It used to be that even without our knowing it, we were warring with the god and demon imprisoned in the slate, and the seven aspects of the god and demon that had been expressed in the seven clans were also warring with one another because we and the powers were at cross purposes," Weismann continued. "The Swords of Damocles were a curse put upon us by the trapped god and demon, and it seemed that our ultimate fate was destruction. At the same time, however, the powers we once drew from the Dresden Slate were what gave us our ability to maintain the peace this country painstakingly built after the last World War, and to protect the innocent – it seemed we could not help but depend on them. But we are now at a point where I believe we can all move forward in harmony with one another and with the powers from the slate, as well as with the manmade powers the Gold clan has developed. _Aka no O_ , do the powers agree?"

All eyes turned to the Red king, who stood at the front of her clan. Anna looked at Weismann, looked steadily around at everyone in the room, and turned her gaze back to Weismann again. She spoke clearly and in a firmer voice than many present had ever heard her use: "I have been in communication with the god and demon from the slate, and they agree with the kings' desire to seek a future of peace with them and one another. They also wish to work with us against hostile powers that may arise – there is already a chance, they tell me, that other powerful beings from the ancient past who have slept for many thousands of years may return to consciousness in the near future because of the spiritual reverberations created by the destruction of the Dresden Slate, and they want to back us up if we need to protect the people and ourselves against them."

A buzz went round the room among those clansmen who had not heard of this possibility before.

"How, precisely, do they plan they work with us, _Aka no O_?" asked the elder Gold clansman from behind his mask. "We can no longer in any good conscience use them like we did once, when we did not know they were enslaved. Yet, we also do not wish to return to a state in which the kings were manipulated by them, for that goes against our desire to seek peace with our own will and our own choices, not like puppets."

"The god and demon will manipulate us no further, because they have returned to their senses, which were clouded and divided while they were held in the slate," Anna said, sounding much more mature than she usually did – she had clearly put much thought into these matters, and had obviously spent time assessing the messages she had received from the powers. "Neither will they war against us any longer, because they have seen our sincerity in no longer wishing to make use of them. They say that our sincerity has been demonstrated in the Gold clan's determination to develop the crystals so that we can use aura of our own making. They have sensed our sincerity in the Silver king's wish to no longer be immortal. And they have seen the nature of our bonds to one another when I sought their help in my desperation to save my clansman, and when the Blue king likewise sought their help in his desperation to save _his_ clansman. They tell me that they themselves sacrificed all for the sake of their bond with each other, and that they most honour the deeds which reflect our heartfelt ties with one another. They are ready to trust our sincerity, because we have shown in these recent deeds that we are now determined to only request their help instead of attempting to forcibly use their power like a tool."

"What would be the actual process of cooperation between us and them?" asked the elder clansman. "How will it work in practice?"

"The Silver king has made proposals that the powers are agreeable to," Anna said. "We, the kings, have also discussed these proposals among ourselves, and we agree on them too."

Anna then nodded to Weismann, who resumed addressing the gathering directly:

"This is how things will be from now. As a mark of our desire to co-exist in mutual respect with the powers and one another, we shall continue to use the manmade powers developed by the Gold clan in our day-to-day dealings with superpowered individuals who aim to do harm to society. We shall no longer consider a return to a state in which we primarily relied on the powers that came from the slate. However, the god and demon have also looked back on the era of kings and clans created from the Dresden Slate, and have expressed to the Red king that there was much which was good and true about those times, even though they were mixed with tragedy. The seven clans did indeed embody the seven vital aspects of the nature of the merged god and demon: eternity, wisdom, destruction, reason, abundance, instruction, and awe. Even if in some individual kings, those aspects became twisted, they embodied them in their own ways. So the god and demon have accepted our proposal to work closely with the kings to re-establish the seven clans."

Another murmur rippled through the gathering.

"What it means," Weismann continued, "is that our god and demon will continue to empower the kings to make new clansmen of those who genuinely wish to join us. And they are happy to re-impart to the existing kings the power suitable for each king, according to his or her nature and the aspect that he or she best expresses. The powers of the kings will no longer be as sharply delineated as before, because the god and demon themselves are no longer trapped in a state in which their powers were forcibly divided against their will. But those seven aspects are truly aspects of their nature, so the seven clans will continue to express them."

"But some clans no longer exist, and some no longer have kings," the elder Gold clansman observed.

"The god and demon are ready to make new kings," was the revelation that Weismann dropped like a firework into the gathering.

"How…?" Kusanagi began, that single cut-off query filled with the wariness and uncertainty that echoed what was felt by the clansmen present, who immediately feared the worst – a return to war among the clans, a return to the damnation that the Swords of Damocles had been.

"Not like before," Weismann smiled. "Not the way I was, or the way Suoh Mikoto was, or the way any of us were. None of us had a real choice, you know. We were all crowned suddenly, and in some cases, after intense resistance. That will no longer be so. Those suitable to become kings – whether among existing clansmen or among others we know nothing of yet – will be shown what they need to know about becoming kings, and then they will have the right to refuse. No kings will be dragged into this unprepared any more, and they will no longer be drawn into fateful duels as they once were – Red, for example, no longer needs to stand absolutely for destruction and wrath, just as Blue no longer needs to stand rigidly for sense and order. In this new world, there will be room for Red to represent passion as well as anything else, and Blue to mean justice as well as anything else. And no new Strains will be born."

"What of the symbol of kingship?" Zenjou asked from the back of the room, giving voice to the haunting images of the threat of execution and widespread destruction that had hung over the heads of the kings only a few months ago.

"The curse is lifted. There will be no more Swords of Damocles," the Silver king declared. "We have asked the powers, and they say that perhaps when a new king is born, they may mark the event with a symbol in the sky – but there will be no more swords threatening to fall to ground when a king exceeds his or her limits. There will be no such artificial limits any longer – the kings were always chosen because of their great innate strength and capacity, and they will still develop their powers according to their own talents, with both the crystals and the powers given them by the god and demon. They will impart to new clansmen the _potential_ to develop these talents with the crystals, and clansmen must work as hard as they always did to hone their aura. In times of crisis – which may come when new powers awake – our god and demon will give our kings and clans even greater strength to take them on and defend the people against them. It may be that we will see something very like the kings' sanctums once more."

"Will the god and demon allow the kings to draw on their powers only as and when they need it in an emergency, or will they let them draw on it freely, according to their judgement? Conversely, will they intervene when a king does _not_ request their powers even though he or she may need it badly?" Kuroh asked, looking concerned. "And might they refuse to impart their strength if a king is drawing on it to do something they do not approve of?"

"Anna-chan?" Weismann turned to the Red king.

Again, Anna spoke up clearly: "Our god and demon will not intervene if we do not ask for their strength. They will not interfere with our choices and will. Even if two kings they have made choose to fight each other, they will not take sides. Even if a king or clansman chooses to end his or her own life, they will not prevent it, except to lend another king or clansman the strength to take action to prevent such a thing. We are not puppets or chess pieces; we must live or die with the consequences of our own choices."

These revelations took a minute or so to sink into the minds of the people gathered, then Kusanagi asked: "Will the new kings and clans be concentrated here, in this land, now that we no longer have a Dresden Slate emanating aura from Tokyo? The god and demon are free, after all, and can go anywhere."

"We'll leave that to their wisdom," Weismann smiled. "Japan does not own the god and demon any more than we do. It may well be their preference to keep the people who express their seven key aspects close together, where they can easily meet and cooperate, but this will be for them to determine."

"And what of you, Weismann-san? The Silver king represents eternity," the elder Gold clansman remarked with a smile curving under the base of his Rabbit mask. "What will the Silver clan be now that you have requested that your immortality should come to an end?"

"Ah yes, that!" Weismann said cheerfully. "The god and demon have answered my request favourably, and they tell the Red king that they have lifted the endless years of my existence from me. I believe I will now proceed to age normally like any other human being – and I am pleased to do so, as I no longer want to live on with no end to the journey in sight when the ones I love most cannot remain by my side."

Here, he looked fondly at Kuroh and Neko – and Hieda, too, who had been invited to the gathering.

"There is no reason," Weismann went on to say, "why the aspect of eternity represented by the Silver clan cannot be one that speaks of the eternity of enduring bonds and the survival of love even after loss and grief – it does not have to be a literal immortality, does it?"

…

"Captain! Lieutenant! Fushimi-san!" someone addressed them from outside the lobby as Sceptre 4 was leaving Mihashira Tower after the gathering.

The members of the Blue clan turned to see a familiar man in civilian clothing bowing formally to them.

"Tsunado Yuugo," Munakata acknowledged the man with a smile – he knew all his swordsmen, after all, even the nine who had resigned from Sceptre 4 a week ago on what they said was principle, after finding out that their captain and their third in command were in an intimate relationship with each other.

"Captain," Tsunado said, straightening up from his bow. "I've been waiting out here since I heard the clans had gathered at Mihashira Tower. I'll come straight to the point, if I may. I wish to apologise for reacting the way I did last week, and to say that I am sorry for leaving Sceptre 4. I will more than accept it as the price I have to pay for my hastiness if you refuse my request, but if you are willing, Captain, I would like to return to the Blue clan."

"You are always a Blue clansman even when you leave Sceptre 4, Tsunado-kun," Munakata said mildly.

"Captain, I will always be honoured by that – and I mean that I hope to return fully to the Blue clan – to Sceptre 4," Tsunado pressed on. "In a moment of hastiness, I had forgotten then what I remembered only after – that I had sworn allegiance to you, my king, and even if you do not wish me to return to Sceptre 4, I am ready to serve you as your clansman and to give support to _all_ my fellow clansmen, as a member of the Blue clan."

"Then come back," Munakata said with surprising ease. "But be warned that we'll be working twice as hard now as we ever did – you'll have to train with artificial aura, which isn't easy, and there may be a storm brewing with new powers arising whose nature we can't predict yet."

Tsunado glanced over at Fushimi, looking as if he was expecting him to say something possibly sarcastic about whether he wasn't still bothered "on principle" that his boss and one of his superiors were kissing in private, but to everyone's surprise, it was Awashima who spoke next, saying evenly: "I do like your lack of bullshit and not waffling on about being willing to return despite your discomfort with this, that or the other, and simply getting straight to the most relevant point about where your loyalty truly lies. You'll have to pay for your new uniform, though – I think the tailoring unit has already recycled your old ones."

"Well, they were starting to get a few tears…" Tsunado said, reading the mood accurately.

"We've missed you," Munakata said in a manner that was largely kind, but also had an inevitable tinge of smugness about it.

" _I_ haven't," Fushimi stated bluntly. "But then I never miss any of my co-workers – or bosses, for that matter. So I think that should be as clear a sign to you as any that I haven't changed and won't change and won't treat anyone differently or be treated differently just because I happen to be closer to my boss than I used to be."

"I know that, Fushimi-san," Tsunado responded contritely, but with a tiny smile at the familiarity of once again getting the petulant, sharp edge of his third in command's tongue.

"Right, I'll work you to death when we're back at HQ, but for now, some of us have another appointment – it's supposed to be my day off, after all. And even if it weren't, Sceptre 4's supposed to be operating on a skeleton staff today, since we didn't know how long the clan gathering would go on," Fushimi said, looking away from Tsunado as the Red clan stepped out of the tower lobby. "Oi, Misaki! Let's get going!"

"Yeah, yeah, coming already!" Yata hollered back, moving more smoothly now than he had only a few days ago, although Kamamoto and Anna still held him by the elbows to steady him as he limped along. " _Where_ are we going again? No one will tell me anything!"

"You'll see," Fushimi smirked. "You'll probably be annoyed, but eventually, I think you'll like it."

"What the hell have you done, Saru?" Yata asked suspiciously, the furrow between his brows creasing deeply.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

…

"Oh my god, Saruhiko, I can't believe you did this," Yata gasped, rooted to the spot, staring into the spacious, well-lit apartment after Fushimi opened the door. "I can't believe you actually... wow."

Fushimi clicked his tongue. "What are you waiting for? Go on in."

"You should _both_ go in together," Kamamoto grinned. "It's yours, after all."

"Come on, clumsy Misaki," Fushimi grumbled, slipping his arm round Yata's waist to anchor him as they entered the apartment and Yata toed his shoes off in the genkan. Fushimi took a second more to pull his boots off, but in a moment, he was helping Yata up the single step from the genkan to the short hallway that led to the living area of the apartment.

"Saru – you remembered," Yata whispered, his eyes widening. "This building, this floor…"

"Yeah."

"What about this building and this floor?" Munakata asked, following them in, along with Awashima, Kamamoto, Anna, Kusanagi, Chitose and Dewa.

"When we first left home after middle school, we couldn't afford to move into any place other than that crazy space which probably wasn't even meant for human habitation," Fushimi murmured, looking back into the past. "But of course we stole a look at different places around Shizume City that we could only dream of, and this was one of the buildings we liked best, with the view from this top floor. It was way out of our league, of course."

"Bloody hell, Saru, it's still way out of _my_ league!" Yata protested.

"Kusanagi-san, Misaki _does_ still have a job with your mobile bar business, doesn't he?" Fushimi smirked.

"If he breaks one more wine glass I may have to reconsider, but for now, yeah," Kusanagi smirked back.

"So I don't see a problem," Fushimi told Yata. "There's no rent to pay, anyway. I've already made the full down payment, and the rest is between us and the bank. If my boss doesn't fire me, we should be fine handling the mortgage – you can draw up your own financial plan for paying me back at your own time."

Fushimi slid a sly glance in Munakata's direction.

Munakata smiled back with a playful gleam in his eye, but Kusanagi bluntly beat the Blue king to whatever punchline he might have been planning to produce, by saying in his half-deadpan, half-teasing way: "Oh, Fushimi, I don't think there's anything for you to worry about – if your boss fires you, your boyfriend will bail you out."

Awashima glared at Kusanagi, Anna and Kamamoto hid their smiles, Fushimi scowled, Munakata beamed even more widely, and Yata spluttered and turned red.

"H-hey, Saru, are you sure us moving in together is a good idea?" Yata asked in a lowered voice, nudging him in the ribs.

"Weren't you the one who was hounding me to move back in with you just a few weeks ago?" Fushimi retorted.

"Yeah, but that was before you and your… well, you know."

"Like we previously discussed when you were still pestering me about it, I'll usually only spend one night a week here since my work requires me to remain close to HQ most of the time, so the dorm's still my main place of residence," Fushimi said, ignoring Yata's allusion to his relationship with Munakata. "Until you recover fully, Kamamoto has agreed to stay here with you six nights a week, so you'll be fine."

"But this place is so… so _grand_ … and…"

"Misaki," Fushimi snapped. "This isn't a grand apartment. It's a _normal_ apartment. It's high time you moved out of that rat's nest. In fact, I'm surprised you didn't move out right after I did."

"I almost did – really – but still, it was livable…"

"It is _not_ livable," Fushimi grunted. "We only thought it was because we were young and stupid, and it's time you and I both moved out of there. You needed to move out of there physically, and I needed to move out of there psychologically, and we both have."

"Everything you need is here, Misaki," Anna said happily. "Not back there any more."

"Yup, everything's here, Yata-san," Kamamoto told him cheerily. "Dewa, Chitose, his girlfriend and I – and Fushimi too, once he was well enough to carry stuff – got all your things out of the old place and moved them over, and we've fixed up your skateboard and sanded the scratches out of your _bo_ – they're in your room…"

"Even the…" Yata began, turning to Fushimi with sudden urgency.

"Yeah, yeah, even the stuff you stashed in your old secret hiding spot," Fushimi muttered. "I retrieved it while the others weren't looking, and it's locked up in that drawer in your bedroom, which you should really have a look at now. We've all just been standing here in the same spot for the last 15 minutes, but there _is_ more to this apartment than just a living room, you know."

"What _stuff_?" Kusanagi demanded, but received no answer. "What secret hiding spot?"

Keeping his back to the intrigued Kusanagi, Fushimi took Yata's right arm and led him and the others round the place, giving them a look at the two bedrooms, a smaller room meant as a study but which could easily be a spare bedroom, the kitchen, the laundry room, the balcony, and the bathrooms, one of which was on its own near the study while the other was attached to one of the bedrooms.

"It's not fully furnished yet, obviously, but the essentials are here, and as you can see, there's lots of space for everyone from Homra to come over and make a total nuisance of themselves," Fushimi grumbled. "But don't make any noise when _I'm_ here, or I'll fling knives at the lot of you."

"You know," Chitose murmured, looking around the mostly empty rooms. "I was too busy to really look when I was helping the ladies move out, but I'd never have guessed that Tamiko and Tomiju lived in such a nice and spacious place – it was always cluttered from floor to ceiling when I visited."

"Though even if you'd had the time, I'll bet you'd never have noticed as you were always making out with Tamiko," Dewa muttered.

"Tamiko and Tomiju?" Awashima asked curiously.

"Oh – Tamiko's my girlfriend–" Chitose began.

" _Current_ girlfriend," Dewa interjected. "With about ten more lining up to take her place…"

"–and she and her sister Tomiju lived here with their parents since they were children," Chitose continued his explanation to Awashima while ignoring Dewa's sardonic comments. "After their parents moved back to the country to take care of an older relative, Tamiko and Tomiju continued living here. Then a few weeks ago, they found another apartment they felt suited their current lifestyle better than this one, and wanted to sell it. Tamiko was more keen on selling than Tomiju, but fortunately, I gave Tomiju the push she needed by presenting them with a ready buyer – Fushimi'd texted me after Yata got injured because he thought I was dating a real estate agent – but that was three girlfriends ago, _haha_. Anyway, he said he was looking for an apartment that would be a healthier place for Yata to recover in and live in for the long term – one with a lift so he wouldn't have to climb stairs with his leg like that, and with a no-smoking rule in the whole building so his hand would heal safely, and with neighbours who wouldn't be either dangerous to live around, or fussy enough to complain if he made noise with his Homra pals."

Fushimi was glaring at Chitose to shut up, but the bloke was refusing to look at him, and instead, it was Yata who was staring at Fushimi looking alarmingly as if he was going to burst into tears any moment now.

"Hey, Chitose…" Fushimi hissed.

"Yata, I never thought I'd say this especially after Fushimi walked out on us, but he's really a great friend to you," Chitose steamrolled on to the end of what he had to reveal. "Fushimi even had to make extra nice to Tomiju to get her to agree to sell him the apartment – I warned him beforehand that while Tamiko is an absolute sweetheart, her sister's a lot more temperamental and eccentric, and he was to be very, _very_ nice to her and go along with whatever she wanted if he wasn't to scupper the deal. It almost led to a misunderstanding with Akiyama and Benzai, apparently?"

"A misunderstanding?" Awashima enquired, clearly smelling news.

"When Tomiju snuggled up to Fushimi – cos that's just her way – she snuggles up to everyone – and Fushimi came out of the apartment half an hour later buttoning up his clothes, Lieutenant, your two special ops guys thought they'd had a roll in the hay up here," Chitose guffawed.

"And _why_ were you buttoning up your clothes when you came out of the apartment?" Munakata asked Fushimi, his brows slightly raised.

"Tomiju's voodoo dolls were in the air vents leading out from the kitchen and bathrooms and one of the bedrooms," Fushimi muttered through gritted teeth, still glaring at Chitose.

"V-voo-voodoo dolls?" Yata stammered.

"I _knew_ you'd react like that if you were to spot them, and she said she was ready to just leave them there because she'd stuffed them in there as a child and didn't want to mess around in the ventilation shafts any more," Fushimi sighed. "But I'd emphasised in my talks with her that my roommate is terrified of all things spooky, and that was when she brought up the dolls. I knew they'd freak you out if you should find them while cleaning the place, so I crawled in there to get them out and return them to her."

"I am _not_ terrified of all things spooky!" Yata protested, looking as if he wanted very badly to stamp his foot, except he couldn't because his right leg was still sore.

"Says the fellow who turned completely pale and almost died of fright when we thought there was a ghost in that cave the time we all went to the beach!" Chitose snorted.

"Hey!" Yata yelled, turning beetroot red.

"It's true," Anna said quietly, poker-faced.

"Anna! Not you too!" Yata wailed, sounding betrayed.

" _Aaand_ that's the tour of the place done, and you can move out of your parents' place and start living here from this second on. Your mum already knows. I've invited your family here for lunch this weekend so your mum can see you're not living in a dump any more," Fushimi announced impatiently to prevent further yelling. "Kamamoto's even put food in the fridge, so you won't starve today."

"I _liked_ that dump!" Yata objected.

"Well, it's too late now – I've terminated your lease," Fushimi told him. "You never took my name off it, did you?"

"I liked that dump," Yata repeated, more quietly this time, turning his face into Fushimi's shoulder to smother the sniffling threatening to come on, before getting his emotions under control and lifting his face again to look at his friend out of eyes framed by rosy lashes beaded with tears he'd managed not to let fall. "But I love this place even more already, especially knowing I'll be sharing it with _family_."

Fushimi stared back at him, blue eyes as wide as Yata's hazel ones, and it felt like they'd come full circle – in middle school, they'd been to each other the family neither had ideally had at home, then they'd been on the verge of becoming something more than that until Homra came into the picture and solidified their bond while driving them apart in other ways, eventually turning them into rivals and enemies. Then they'd become friends again, and at last, like this, they were once again brothers who understood what the other needed without having to ask too much.

…

"How is it that I have been reduced to this?" Munakata asked Fushimi when they were alone at last in their car, having left Yata and Kamamoto in the apartment while Kusanagi and Awashima took Anna back to Homra to discuss a new catering deal with a client.

"Reduced to what?" Fushimi asked, buckling up in the passenger seat.

"Watching my lover move into an apartment with another man," Munakata elaborated.

"We've been over this," Fushimi sighed, reddening at how unabashedly Munakata had called him _his lover_.

"Seeing you with Yata-san, your arm around him, and him looking at you out of those sparkling eyes, discovering how much care you've taken to ensure that he will be comfortable in that apartment, and even retrieving something secret from a hiding place only the two of you know about has really driven home how much of a history you have together," Munakata mused.

"A history that has evolved into a different kind of closeness," Fushimi stated. "You know that better than anyone."

"I do," Munakata conceded. "Still, this is quite provoking."

"There's nothing _provoking_ about it," Fushimi grumbled. "I've explained everything already and there's no call for you to–"

Munakata cut him off by leaning over to his seat and kissing him deep and hard, holding his head gently, keeping him trapped there between his seat belt and the upholstery. There was desire and heat and possessiveness in Munakata's touch, in the lips that claimed his, in the tongue searching his mouth, demanding a response from him. Fushimi let him in, kissed back eagerly, and lapped up all the _want_ he felt in that contact.

But as he lifted his hands to reach for Munakata, the captain drew back, adjusted his glasses which had gone askew after clashing with Fushimi's, strapped his own seat belt on, and turned the key in the ignition.

"Seriously? You're going to just leave it like that after working me up?" Fushimi asked in disbelief.

"No, Saruhiko, I'm stealing you for the day," Munakata announced as he pulled smoothly out of the carpark at the foot of the apartment building and drove off in the direction of Tsubaki-mon.

"Isn't this the road back to HQ? We are going back to work, aren't we?"

"Not for a while more," Munakata replied. "I've just seen your apartment, so it's only fair that you should see mine."

"Yours? As in the one you keep near Tsubaki-mon but almost never visit?"

"Yes."

"And what are we planning to do in that apartment?" Fushimi asked, quite rhetorically, as it was plain what Munakata had in mind.

The answer he received was a smile, and the car speeding up. The drive barely took five minutes – Fushimi and Yata's new place, being midway between the Homra bar and Sceptre 4 headquarters, was close to where they were headed – so before Fushimi could mentally catch his breath, they were already at their destination.

The captain's personal apartment, which Fushimi had never visited, was in the kind of well-kept building which would attract the upper-middle-income classes, discreet and not at all ostentatious. The unit itself, when Munakata unlocked the door after they took the lift up to the eighth floor, looked minimally and elegantly furnished in a way that precisely reflected Munakata's personality.

"I do believe I've earned this after so patiently watching you help Yata Misaki over the threshold of your new home as if you were newlyweds moving in together," Munakata stated.

"Earned what?"

In answer, Munakata slung Fushimi over his shoulder just like he had that night in the office and carried him over the threshold of his apartment.

"Honestly…" Fushimi protested uselessly before he was deposited on the seat that doubled as a shoe shelf in the genkan so they could both get their boots off.

Munakata chuckled at the look on his face, and once they'd removed their footwear and their coats, the captain extended a hand to him. He took it and allowed himself to be led to the bedroom off to the left of the living room. It was an eight-tatami-mat space unsurprisingly furnished in traditional style, with a built-in teak wardrobe at one end and a matching low cabinet under the window, which was screened with gauzy day curtains, the heavier olive-hued night drapes pulled off to the sides and secured with tiebacks.

Munakata rested his sabre on the cabinet before moving over to the wardrobe to slide one side of it open and extract a large futon. Fushimi watched him while unbuckling his knife harnesses and stripping the holster wraps from his forearms and ankles; he went over to help him once he had laid his weapons down. Together, they set up their bed.

"Perhaps I can negotiate an arrangement, Saruhiko," Munakata said as they worked in tandem to smooth the covers over the unfolded mattress and slip the pillowcases on.

"What arrangement?" Fushimi asked.

"I recently declared my intention to wake up beside you for many mornings to come, and I meant that with all my heart," Munakata reminded him. "So, even if both of us will spend most of our nights at the Sceptre 4 dormitory, and you will spend your days off at your apartment with Yata Misaki, I hope you will sleep here at least one other night a week, when we are both able to be away from the dorm. It's close enough to headquarters that we could still make it there within three minutes in an emergency. I will give you your own key. You can come here whenever you like."

"Wow, it's like I suddenly have _three_ homes," Fushimi remarked, the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Is that consent?"

"Maybe," the younger man teased.

"Unlike your living arrangements with Yata Misaki, here, you will share my bedroom. And _this_ is _our_ bed," Munakata said with a plainness that made Fushimi colour, especially when his king reached over the mattress, cupped his left cheek with his right hand, and said in a softer voice: "And I would very much like to get you into it immediately."

"I think I can be persuaded," Fushimi whispered back.

"I certainly hope so."

Since Fushimi had been discharged from hospital a week ago, they had done nothing more than kiss behind closed doors – his body was too sore and weak for anything else. Even after Dr Ozaki had given him the all-clear two days back, Munakata had been too cautious to attempt anything. But it seemed that now, they were both ready.

Fushimi scooted closer on the futon as Munakata drew him in. His hand went to the top button of his waistcoat, but Munakata was there first, deftly undoing the fastenings of his garments, one after the other, not allowing him to undress himself. He tried to reach for Munakata's shirt buttons in return, but had his hands gently pushed back down. He eyed Munakata quizzically; the captain only smiled that maddeningly secretive smile and continued removing Fushimi's clothes – waistcoat, shirt, belt, socks, and his glasses. Then he pressed him back onto the futon, and wordlessly – with a glint in his violet eyes – ordered him to just lie there as he unfastened his trousers and pulled them off his body along with his boxers.

Fushimi shivered from the cold air hitting his bare skin, breathing harder from being disrobed like this, laid bare in broad daylight by his king, who was leaning over him, those compelling eyes raking over his body. He opened his mouth to say something – to protest, tease, snipe, break the tension… something – but he didn't get a word out before the captain straddled his body and crushed his mouth to his in a kiss more demanding than what he had pressed on him in the car.

His shivering intensified with the pace of his breaths when he tried to touch Munakata while responding to the kiss, only to have the captain, still fully clothed, seize his wrists and pin them to the futon. Fushimi moaned as he felt the weight of the other man settle against the length of his body, hands holding him down, tongue and lips plundering his mouth, the swelling, hardening member trapped within those uniform trousers pressing in between his thighs.

" _Captain_ ," Fushimi gasped when Munakata shifted from his mouth to his ear, nibbling and licking the delicate pink shell, tracing the fine contours with the very tip of his tongue, sending spiralling sensations deep into Fushimi's belly.

"I haven't punished you yet for going behind my back to trap Nagato," Munakata whispered into the ear he was attending to.

Fushimi's breath caught, and a frisson of uncertainty raced over his skin.

"I _should_ , but I won't," Munakata continued, giving the outer curve of his ear the lightest of teasing nibbles. "Because I can't deny that the only thing I pleaded for, bargained with the powers for, when I saw you in that state, was to get you back whole and unharmed. Yet, I had to honour your will and your wishes too, which could have killed you. In the end, it seems that I did get you back in one piece, and I can't punish you for that."

"Captain," Fushimi repeated, uneasy about not being able to see Munakata's face full-on because he was speaking into his ear, nudging his cheek, holding him in place with the strength of his hands and the weight of his body.

"But I hope to impress upon you that you are no longer accountable only to yourself where your life is concerned, because your life is intertwined with mine now, Fushimi Saruhiko."

Fushimi's breath caught again, and he held it, hardly daring to inhale or exhale.

"I do not like speaking of possession – I do not like talking in terms of ownership – because we are all free individuals. No person owns another," Munakata was saying. "But with you, Saruhiko… I want to insist that you are mine, that you are no one else's but mine, and I won't let even you do harm to yourself… I want to, but I won't, because it is my hope that I won't have to – that you will remain beside me and know that you belong here even when I do not make a claim of ownership on you."

"Reisi…" Fushimi said softly, letting the air out of his lungs.

Munakata raised his head at this to look at him, released his wrists so he could caress his face, and let Fushimi slip his glasses off to put them aside.

"Say that again," Munakata murmured, stroking Fushimi along the line of his cheek.

" _Reisi_ ," he obliged. "I'm not going anywhere."

With his wrists freed at last, he slipped his arms round Munakata's neck and pulled him close for a gentle kiss that deepened as they re-explored each other with the knowledge that neither of them planned to walk away. Only then did Munakata permit Fushimi to unknot his cravat and unbutton his shirt, but he'd only got that far when Munakata, not choosing to wait any longer, slid his hands down Fushimi's torso and followed with his mouth, teasing his bare skin with flicks of his tongue, laving his nipples, dipping into his navel as he held his hips in place and making his clansman's back arch off the futon.

Fushimi, panting heavily, struggled against the arousal suffusing his entire body to sit up, protesting: "Last time, you didn't let me do a thing to you, and now, again, you're…"

"Patience, Saruhiko," Munakata smiled against the groove where his left thigh met his body.

"Uh-uh," Fushimi grunted, trying to resist that smile, that mouth, trying to shift away – only to find himself trapped again when Munakata moved swiftly to stop him, wrapping his unwound cravat with astonishing fluidity around his wrists and loosely knotting the ends around his neck, resulting in Fushimi literally having his hands tied.

"You're bloody impossible," Fushimi growled, testing the bindings and discovering that he couldn't attempt to free his hands without putting pressure on his throat. "What the hell is this? You never told me I was getting into a relationship with some kind of kinky S&M pervert."

"You haven't seen kinky yet," Munakata smirked. "But I won't display my whole repertoire at the moment – for the moment, all I require of you is to enjoy yourself."

Without further warning, Munakata wrapped his hand around Fushimi's cock and stroked it firmly, leaving his clansman moaning helplessly once he added his mouth to the task. Fushimi writhed and bucked under his ministrations, desperately wanting to reach down and dig his fingers into his lover's hair, except his hands were still knotted to his neck and he couldn't loose them. He'd never thought he liked being restrained, but this was _Munakata_ they were talking about here, and it somehow felt incredible just because it was _him_ – his mouth taking him in, his tongue shaping itself to provide just the right amount of friction, his nimble fingers caressing his balls, his other hand on his hip to manage the depth of his thrusts.

He climaxed hard, crying out, spending himself down his captain's throat, and as he came down from his high and Munakata allowed him to slip slowly out of his mouth, he rolled onto his side, hands balled into loose fists before his neck, body curling up lightly. In this state of demi-consciousness, he was vaguely aware of Munakata moving away from the futon, leaving him tied up there, but before he could do more than murmur questioningly, his king was back by his side, gently undoing the knots and freeing his wrists.

"Pervert," Fushimi mumbled, but with no malice in his accusation. On the contrary, he could feel a grin trying to break out on his lips.

"It's possibly about to get even more perverted from your perspective," Munakata smiled. "But only with your permission."

"Oh…" Fushimi breathed, feeling the captain's fingers slipping deep into the crevice of his ass.

"May I, Saruhiko?" Munakata asked.

Fushimi swallowed a lump he didn't know had formed in his throat, and nodded. It seemed that in those few seconds Munakata had stepped away from the futon, he had fully undressed himself and also retrieved a bottle of what was apparently lube. He was warming a generous amount of it on his fingers now, spreading it over his digits until it was close enough to body temperature not to make Fushimi jump.

"Relax," Munakata murmured, pressing a kiss to his abdomen as he raised one of Fushimi's legs and eased one finger into him.

One finger was fine, Fushimi thought. Munakata worked it in and out slowly, getting him used to the feel of it. He added another digit when Fushimi indicated he was ready for it, and pushed in carefully. This was harder to take – he felt filled up already – but the lubricant eased the entry and gentle fingering.

"Breathe," Munakata reminded him. "Slow and steady. We'll take our time."

More lubricant slathered around the orifice to make it more comfortable for him, and in a minute or so, his body had adjusted. Even so, when Munakata positioned his third finger over the entrance, Fushimi's first instinct was to pull away. However, the captain's other hand on his knee lifted his leg higher, then moved over to raise his other leg too, spreading him open. Fushimi could feel the blush deepening on his cheeks, but Munakata kissed the inside of his right thigh, slid his three fingers in, and Fushimi moaned, biting down on his knuckles. He remembered, though, to breathe slowly and deeply, and soon, those digits were working quite smoothly in and out of him.

"Are you all right?" Munakata asked softly, moving up alongside him to nuzzle his face and kiss him on the lips.

"Y-yes…"

"I think you're ready for me."

A shiver ran through Fushimi's body for what seemed like the tenth time that day, but as always with Munakata, it was a good kind of trembling, a welcome brand of anticipation, so he kissed his captain back and wrapped his arms around his shoulders as he mounted him. Yet more lubricant was smoothed around the point of entry and Munakata's cock, then he felt that blunt head against his flesh, pressing firmly, pressing in, and he inhaled sharply as it slipped slowly but surely through the opening. " _Reisi…_ "

He didn't know how Munakata could be so patient, but the captain didn't move once he was inside, keeping still, just waiting and only peppering Fushimi's jaw with tender nibbling, until the tension gradually ebbed from his frame as his body made further adjustment to the length and width of what had just penetrated him. It wasn't comfortable, but it felt manageable, and with his feet on the futon drawn up close against his hips, he tentatively moved himself back and forth on Munakata's shaft, smiling through his blushes when he managed to draw a surprised grunt from the captain.

"You _are_ ready, then?" Munakata smirked, kissing him deeply one more time before he took over and thrust into Fushimi without further hesitation.

Fushimi cried out against Munakata's mouth, clutching the other man's back in a feverish embrace as his measured strokes sent curious sensations through him. There was still some discomfort, but it was easing, and he gasped when on a few firm, gentle, carefully angled thrusts, Munakata's cock brushed a point inside him that produced an intense, mounting pleasure which he wanted more of.

" _Hnnngh…_ " he moaned from those strange new sensations just as Munakata began kissing all the sensitive lines along his neck, driving him absolutely wild. "I… Reisi… unh… aaaahh… _Reisi_ …"

Munakata responded to his cries and the sound of his name with faster, deeper thrusts, making the younger man whimper more loudly. Fushimi felt his own cock hardening again into another full erection, and he tensed his muscles to heighten the pleasure, clenching his ass around Munakata's cock. The captain gasped against his skin, his heated breath suffusing Fushimi's neck as he reached down and stroked Fushimi's shaft, once, twice, three times – that was all to took to tip Fushimi into another tremendous orgasm, and his cum spurted out over both his chest and the captain's as Munakata himself climaxed, firing his hot seed into Fushimi's body.

They pulled each other close while they rode out the final, intense shocks of pleasure, then Munakata, panting harder than Fushimi had ever heard him, let his weight come to rest on his lover's body, covering him, keeping him warm, breathing in the scent of sweat and desire and affection as he nosed his hair, his forehead, his face. They lay entangled like that for a few minutes, then Munakata carefully drew his softening member out of Fushimi, and they lay on their sides facing each other, arms wound around shoulders and neck and waist, just touching, and stroking, and soothing.

"How do you feel?" Munakata asked tenderly – so tenderly it almost broke Fushimi's heart to think how he'd almost lost all this, almost left it all behind by coming so close to death.

"I feel that I'm glad to be alive," he confessed. "And I'm sorry I gave you such a scare a week ago. Truly."

"I'm glad we're both alive," Munakata murmured, smiling at him, accepting his contrition for going behind his back that day.

"Thank you for supporting me and giving me strength and saving me," Fushimi whispered. "I was in a scary place, but you came and pulled me out of there."

"I still haven't asked, and you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but what happened in there to scare you?"

"That man – that man I'm biologically obliged to call my father – I heard his taunting voice telling me that…"

"What did you hear?"

"I heard his voice saying that in a world with Suoh Mikoto in it, you would never look at me again."

"Saruhiko…"

"It's okay. I know how you felt about him, and I know it's not true that you wouldn't look at me, but I know it would be hard for you–"

"Saruhiko."

"Hmm?"

Munakata hugged him tightly and said in a voice that was soft but firm with truth: "In a world with Suoh Mikoto in it, I would tell him that he was wrong about him and me not being able to be friends. I would tell him that we could in fact be the best of friends if we both stopped being so bloody stubborn. And then I would tell him that he was right about something else – about him and me not ever being able to be lovers – I'd tell him he was right about that, because I've discovered that even in a world with Suoh Mikoto in it, Fushimi Saruhiko would be my only lover… my only love."

Fushimi's gaze widened – even without his glasses, it seemed he could see the utter honesty in Munakata's violet eyes – it seemed that for once, he could read those mysterious eyes perfectly. And for once, he knew that he didn't have to say anything in answer, because he could say it all by meeting Munakata's mouth with his own and just letting him taste the answer on his lips and on his tongue – that here, with him, was exactly where he wanted to be, and where he planned to stay for a very long time to come.

* * *

 **Note:** I know that in the short stories, Yata moved out of the apartment not long after Fushimi left Homra, but I've ignored that fact for this fic, because I imagined that Yata would in fact cling to the home they'd shared, and, well, I just wanted Fushimi to move his best friend into a nice new place :)

 **Art:** Visit Anonymous Fanatic's gallery at anonfanatic dot deviantart dot com slash gallery to see all the art she has done for this story.


	22. What We Have Become

**What We Have Become**

"Doumyouji! _Baka!_ " Fushimi yelled into the wireless communication device pinned to his collar as he sprinted furiously through the alleyways, Hidaka and Gotou at his heels. "Fall back! Repeat: _Fall back!_ _Do not engage!_ "

"But Fushimi-san!" Doumyouji whined back through the two-way radio, panting heavily between syllables. " _They're_ engaging _us!_ One of them's bloody strong too – kicked me in the head!"

" _Tch._ I'll be sure to have him kick you again after we arrest him!" Fushimi promised bad-temperedly. "Confirmation's come through – they're not just regular new-gen supes – all are Beta-class, at least one is demi-king-level, Risk 4! If you don't fucking want to _die_ , fall back at once!"

"New-gen supes", as they called them, were Strain-like superpowered humans whose abilities had emerged over the course of the past year. Shortly after Nagato's arrest, Anna had warned that their god and demon had sensed other sealed immortals starting to leak their powers to people.

The good news was that none of these sealed immortals appeared to be as powerful as the merged pair from the Dresden Slate, or as filled with rage as Nagato's god. Also, none seemed to have reached a level of awakening that would allow them to truly sync with anyone – their powers were simply filtering out in their semi-conscious state.

The bad news was that some of these powers were still extremely troublesome, and in certain highly talented new-gens who had a special affinity with specific immortal auras, the abilities they acquired were of a similar level to those of Beta-class Strains or even greater – as if they were demi-kings.

It was now one year after the first such abilities had emerged, and the clans had not only taken on the role of countering criminals with such powers, but also of tracking down the artefacts the unknown immortals were sealed in, in order to strengthen the seals.

Fortunately, to date, the aura reverberations from the destruction of the Dresden Slate did not appear to have spread too far beyond the Kanto region – otherwise, individuals given superpowers by other immortals would have cropped up all over the _planet_. The location of the wrathful god Nagato had previously synced with was still unknown, but Weismann had concluded that for the artefact sealing it to be able to affect and respond to a human in Japan, it had to be comparatively close by – perhaps directly under them, beneath the sea.

The Kansai region, however, had suffered some trouble. Sceptre 4 had – with help from the military police and civil defence engineering teams – dug up another rock from deep below a river in Kyoto. This was five months ago, after Anna had pointed them in that direction following a flurry of disturbances in that prefecture caused by Strain-like individuals. Once the rock was transferred to Tokyo and sealed by the Gold clan, all the individuals given power by it had lapsed into normalcy, and Kyoto's peace was restored.

But within the Kanto region, a fresh crop of new-gen superpowereds had recently emerged. And while the clans were still hunting the artefact leaking such abilities to these people, they had to tackle the people themselves, as Sceptre 4 was doing right now.

"Fushimi-san!" Akiyama's voice crackled through the radio now. "We're heading off the second group of suspects, but we're entering Homra territory!"

"Proceed!" Fushimi ordered, before going on to mutter: "It's not like they don't already know we're there."

"I beg your pardon, Fushimi-san? I didn't catch that."

"Not important. Proceed as planned. Enter Shizume City," he confirmed. "Benzai! What are the readings coming up on our monitors?"

From within the ops van, Benzai replied: "Fushimi-san, the readings from our sensors in that area show only one quasi-king-level individual facing Doumyouji's team. The others are coming up as Beta-class, but there's another party moving towards Doumyouji's team from inside Shizume City. We can't fix a power level on that person yet."

"Damn," Fushimi swore. "If it's another one approaching king level, Doumyouji and his guys are dead. Captain! We need you to divert your course from Akiyama and the second group of suspects, and towards the first group on the Tsubaki-mon border!"

"I'm already headed in that direction, Fushimi-kun," Munakata's calm voice sounded through the communication channel.

The group they were pursuing had broken into the national museum in the early hours of this morning and attempted to make off with a hoard of ancient gold and bronze treasures on loan from the British Museum. A very late tip-off from the criminal underworld had notified Fushimi about the crime only when it was already underway, as well as communicated the detail that it was being carried out by a powerful group of new-gen supes hired by an unknown party working through an international crime ring.

However, even before Sceptre 4 could swing into action, the gang had coincidentally been interrupted by museum security and a regular police patrol in the course of making off with the loot. With their superpowers, they had blasted their way right through the police line that had arrived as back-up, and seized officers as well as the museum security staff as hostages. They'd been using the hostages as shields against reinforcements from the military police.

The safety of the hostages was Sceptre 4's priority, so Awashima and Munakata had swooped in and deliberately scattered the gang. Then they'd strategically targeted the suspects holding the hostages, and freed the latter, one by one. But now, Munakata's superior powers were needed against the semi-king-level suspect and his men who were attempting to enter Shizume City to regroup with whichever of their comrades were still on the loose – and they were apparently ready to kill the Sceptre 4 team trying to keep them from doing so.

Fushimi, Hidaka and Gotou increased their pace – as if they weren't already in an all-out sprint – towards the street where Doumyouji's team was. They'd abandoned the vehicle (and Fuse) once it became clear that the roads were clogged with morning peak-hour traffic fleeing the scene of the fight, where one of the new-gen supes had apparently discharged several fireballs from his bare hands in an assault on the Blue clansmen and the surrounding buildings.

So they raced through the side lanes on foot, over the cobblestones, taking a shortcut Fushimi knew. As they emerged from the last narrow lane, Doumyouji and Kamo came into view along with the people they were facing – a gang clad in the rather laughable cliché of black combat fatigues. But even as they spotted their fellow clansmen and the enemy, a fireball thrown by one of the gang leaders came firing their way.

"Shields up!" Fushimi yelled to warn Hidaka and Gotou, even as he activated his aura from the crystal strapped to his wrist and flung up an emergency barrier through his throwing knives. The barrier deflected the flames and most of the impact, and they continued their run towards their colleagues – until what looked like a tornado in the distance came whizzing in their direction towards the cluster of suspects down the road that led from Shizume City.

" _Shit, shit, shit!_ " they heard Doumyouji shout over to them. "That one – we're not going to be able to hold off…"

Heart-sinkingly, at exactly the same time, the Sceptre 4 personnel on the ground heard Benzai's urgent voice through the radio: "Fushimi-san! Captain! The individual attempting to join Group 1 is also demi-king-level!"

"Fuck!" Fushimi hissed, drawing his sabre and infusing it with all the power he could. " _Two_ of them in the same spot!"

But even as he prepared to sustain serious injury alongside his men in taking on two extremely powerful new-gen supes, something else – no, _someone_ else – zoomed at high speed onto the scene, skidding to a smoking halt between the "tornado" and Doumyouji's team.

Yata Misaki.

"Oi! Blues!" the beanie-topped redhead called out with a shit-eating grin, one foot on his skateboard, and his left hand – all healed up over the past year and as strong as ever – gripping his _bo_. "If you can't take the heat, you oughta leave what's in our territory to _us!_ "

"Mi-sa-ki," Fushimi sang back with a growl. "If Homra would police its territory better we wouldn't have to chase bloody criminals through _your streets!_ "

"Yeah? And if Sceptre 4 would _catch_ criminals more efficiently, we wouldn't have them spilling over into our area!" Yata sniped.

"Misaki, you're _IN MY WAY!_ " Fushimi snarled, springing in one impressive leap at the guy Yata _hadn't_ seen coming – the first demi-king-level new-gen who had been moving up behind Yata to make the Homra vanguard the meat in a supe sandwich.

" _Yaaaaagh!_ " Yata hollered as he leaped out of the way of Fushimi's sabre, which missed running right through him by mere inches. "Saru you _jerk_! Some fucking warning would be nice!"

But even as he snapped at Fushimi, Yata was already swinging into the fight, taking on the second semi-king-level enemy with his _bo_ and skateboard, aura blazing from the crystal strapped to _his_ own wrist.

That was the cue for an all-out street battle between the rest of the gang and the Sceptre 4 team, with Doumyouji shouting over to his third in command: "Fushimi-san! I guess this means we can engage _now_?!"

Fushimi didn't bother to answer as he and Yata moved like a well-practised battle unit – which they were – and succeeded in pushing the gang leaders back, away from the Shizume City border.

"Now _you're_ in _our_ territory, Misaki," Fushimi grinned.

"Shut up, Saru!"

They got in that fleeting exchange just before the two demi-king-level new-gens charged in for another strike – with bolts of electricity and fireballs – which clearly aimed to kill this time, as they had realised that these two bickering clansmen were not the kind of fighters they could just flick aside. Their increased purposefulness wasn't easy for Fushimi and Yata to handle, and Yata began to falter while even Fushimi staggered under the onslaught. It was looking dicey.

Until two powerful blasts of white aura tinged with shades of colour sent the gang leaders retreating behind their own versions of aura shields. Suddenly, the fight didn't look so bad for the clansmen, because their kings had arrived – Anna from the Shizume end, and Munakata from the road that led from Nanakamado.

People who knew the Red king had once assumed that her Strain powers and the trauma of her childhood – as well as whatever physical problems she had been born with that had for many years made it impossible for her to see colours other than red – had left her physical growth permanently stunted. But over the past year, she had sprung up by about three inches, and was starting to look more and more like the young lady she would grow into, despite her continued love for frilly gothic outfits.

Although she did not have Suoh Mikoto's uniquely contradictory blend of overwhelming aggressiveness and laid-back charm, the adolescent king was rapidly developing her own brand of charisma – a compelling combination of dignified strength in silence and bursts of power that came through with a passion that could rock the stability of enemies in her range.

And just as she had done several times with the Blue king over the last 12 months, they took on their near-king-level opponents in unison, each using his or her own massive aura which stemmed from the crystals as well as from the god and demon. Their power was expressed as a shimmering whiteness tinged with scarlet from the Red king, and azure from the Blue king. It was just as Anna and Weismann had said in that gathering a year ago – each king and clan did truly represent a certain eternal aspect of the god and demon, and their powers had always been marked by distinct colours for that reason. They continued to be distinguished by those colours now, but instead of the clans being in opposition, all were unified by the iridescent overtone of pure white from the manmade crystals.

Also just like in the past, once the kings exerted their power, it boosted their clansmen's strength, and Doumyouji's team began to prevail against the Beta-class gang members. Fushimi took his place beside his king as Yata fell in next to Anna. Then without any prior discussion, all four instinctively synchronised their attacks.

For the next minute, the entire street was filled with aura that blazed and aura like a tsunami, the clash of sabres, the thudding of throwing knives finding their mark, the rattle of skateboard wheels and the crack of the _bo_. By the end of that minute, the Blue and Red clans had taken down their opponents.

The hefty demi-king-level gang leader who had been tackled by Munakata and Fushimi snarled as Fushimi, Hidaka and Gotou clapped him in the broad-spectrum aura-inhibiting shackles developed by Weismann and the Gold clan, but he couldn't break loose, not with his power suppressed. Glaring at Fushimi and Munakata, he sneered: "Should have known I'd have trouble from the Blue king and his _consort_."

Before Fushimi could snap back with his brand of sarcasm, however, a smallish red human fireball barged in between them and stuck his foot into the gang leader's face. "Oi!" Yata snarled at the man. "Say one more stupid thing to provoke this stupid monkey here and I'm putting my _other_ shoe into your mouth – _you know_ , the shoe that just scraped a disgusting wad of dog poop off that pavement cos your pal over there pushed me onto it?"

"Misaki," Fushimi growled. "I can fight _my own_ battles. And if that shoe is spreading canine excrement over your skateboard right now, I will kill you if don't bloody disinfect both the shoe and the skateboard before letting either item anywhere near the apartment."

"Yeah, yeah, will do. Shut up, Saru."

"Hey, you guys didn't leave anything for me?" a familiar voice called out casually from behind them. "Our half of the gang didn't put up much of a fight – I barely had to lift a finger to help Akiyama-san! Oh, by the way, Akiyama-san's retrieved the museum exhibits."

"Izumo," Anna greeted her guardian and advisor with a smile as she looked away from the opponent she and Yata had defeated once he was hauled off by Sceptre 4 to their van. "Weren't Rikio, Kosuke and Eric with you?"

"Yup, but they just got into a scuffle back there with a different gang – no, no, not Strains or new-gens!" Kusanagi clarified, waving his palm to fend off Munakata's querying look. "Just a regular group harassing some ladies in our territory! Is Seri-chan back at Tsubaki-mon?"

"Awashima-kun is at headquarters processing the gang members whom we freed the hostages from," Munakata replied.

"I'll drop by to see her later," Kusanagi sighed. "I swear I've seen even _less_ of her since we got engaged – you've gotta stop working your people so hard, Captain."

"Unforunately, Kusanagi-shi, we are busier than ever," Munakata said mildly.

"The new prime minister's relying on you guys a lot, huh?" Kusanagi chuckled. "Ah, no help for it. Business is going well for Homra now, but still it's good for me to at least know I'll have a wife who'll more than pull her financial weight with a decent salary!"

"Captain! All the suspects have been secured in the vans. We're ready to go," Doumyouji ran up to Munakata to report.

"We'll take our leave then, _Aka no O_ , Kusanagi-shi, Yata-san. The Red clan has my thanks for all the help you have given us today."

As the Sceptre 4 personnel turned to leave, Yata called out: "Oi, Saru!"

"What?"

"I'm making fried rice and yakitori for dinner tonight. You okay with that?"

"Yeah… thanks."

"See you at home."

"See you at home."

…

"Your move, Nagato-san," Weismann said with a gentle smile, moving his white knight diagonally across the chessboard.

In silence, Nagato Hideyoshi countered the move by shuffling one of his pawns one square up, his Strain-inhibiting bracelet clinking lightly against one of the taller pieces as he did so.

"Hmm, good preparatory move," Weismann observed. "You're picking up the game fast and well, Nagato-san. You see? Contrary to your old belief, you _can_ become skilled in something that has set rules and a beauty to the patterns it is made up of."

Weismann had set aside a few hours every week for six months now to spend time with Nagato in his high-security room at Nanakamado, ever since the patient had been deemed well enough by Dr Ozaki to be able to interact calmly with other people. The Silver king had learnt, through conversations that were at first impossible, but later grew easier, how Nagato had committed all the crimes he had committed through sheer instinct rather than painstakingly acquired skill, and had always looked down on himself for it.

They played chess, and _go_ , made things out of clay, and painted watercolour images that didn't always make sense, but somehow calmed Nagato down further.

"Why?" Nagato asked in a barely audible voice as Weismann moved his bishop next. "Why do you keep doing this?"

"Because it really is all right for you to hate me," Weismann said kindly. "I'm the one who decided to destroy the Dresden Slate. I did it to save as many people as I could, but I never dreamt that someone you loved would be harmed by my decision. I am the one who caused your loss, and I am sorry for that. If you can put a face to the person you ought to hold responsible for your suffering, perhaps you will stop turning your hate inwards toward yourself as well as outwards in every direction toward the world. At the same time, I hope to prove to you that you are not just a mass of unthinking instinct and need not be merely a collection of human cells seething with self-loathing, but someone who can develop his own brand of beauty to match all the beauty that Yamakawa Mirai saw in you."

"I _do_ hate you," Nagato growled, though his snarl had more resignation in it than six months ago, and his voice was far steadier, much less quavery.

"I accept your hate," Weismann said humbly to the young man as he shifted his queen out of danger. "Your move now."

…

"I thought at first that your visits would only increase his rage, but his attending physician tells me that both his mental and physical health appear to be improving," said the new Gold king to Weismann, when the latter left Nagato's room. "He is certainly calmer, and I think, less bent on self-destruction – but the latter observations are only what I see as a lay person."

"You are excessively modest," Weismann chuckled. "The great wisdom you have received probably lets you see more about Nagato-san than I do."

He smiled at the elderly man, who was now unmasked, and whose face he had only seen once before he became the new Gold king. That first time they'd talked with no masks between them had been just after the private funeral of Kokujouji Daikaku, when Weismann – still in Hieda Tooru's body as Isana Yashiro – had invited a Rabbit to talk about his late master. The Rabbit had removed his mask and spoken for a few brief minutes as someone who had belonged to a branch family of the Kokujouji clan, and had been by the late Gold king's side since the latter's return from Germany towards the tail end of the Second World War.

After his conversation with Weismann, he had put his Rabbit mask back on, and the Silver king had thought that he might never look on the man's true face again. They'd met frequently in recent months, of course, for he was the most respected elder Gold clansman who had authorised continuing research into the crystals, headed the clan in all vital matters, and held key discussions with the kings. At all times, however, he had worn that mask, and all signs had indicated that he might well die with it on.

Yet, here they were now, two kings together, speaking face to uncovered face, after the god and demon of the Dresden Slate had chosen him to be the next Gold king.

Kokujouji Masaru, the elder clansman who had discarded his name and his identity to devote his entire life to the far-seeing vision of Kokujouji Daikaku, now found himself, in the latter years of his long life, unexpectedly occupying his late master's throne.

"Weismann-san, you are too kind – I am nowhere as wise as the late Gold king was," he shook his head.

"You might surprise yourself," Weismann replied. "The powers chose you for a reason, and have expanded your natural abilities to the full. You were already leading the Gold clan wisely and impeccably as its elder clansman, and I have no doubt that you will continue to do so as its king."

"Ah, perhaps I should have declined like Fushimi-san did," the Gold king laughed. "He refused the crown of the Green king even though he has so many years ahead of him, whereas I, this old man with not much longer to live, readily accepted the position of Gold king. Maybe that boy is wiser than I am."

"Fushimi-san is… well, he's a unique case," Weismann laughed along with his new old friend. "You have accepted this in your wisdom, and he has declined it for his own reasons."

"Well, as he is not a king at present, perhaps I can still persuade him to join the Gold clan," Kokujouji Masaru remarked archly. "He's a talent I could use."

"The Blue king would fight you to the death for him," Weismann warned.

"I have no doubt about that."

"Oh, have you spoken to the new Colourless king?" Weismann asked. "She really came out of nowhere, didn't she? I was astonished to see that crown in the sky heralding her selection – I'd never heard of her before she was crowned. But at least she seems sane and reasonable."

"Although she has asked you if she can have Yatogami Kuroh, hasn't she?" the Gold king remarked.

"Yes," Weismann sighed, dramatically clapping a palm to his forehead and looking as if he was about to have a migraine. "I don't think she's given up yet, and Neko is in tears at the mere idea that her 'Kurosuke' might leave us. But he's refused to return to the Colourless clan, and the new king can't force him to. Hmm… maybe I can try to fob off Mishakuji Yukari on her…?"

"Good luck with that, Silver king," the Gold king said, sounding both doubtful and amused.

"It's worth a try! Oh, and how do you find the new Grey king? I still don't know much about him, but so far he's a bit overbearing, don't you think…?"

…

"Misaki, I think I tore my dress when I brushed against the railing while fighting the gang leader," Anna remarked, examining the garment which she had just taken out of the tumble dryer.

"Ah – Awashima-san left that sewing kit somewhere here last time, didn't she?" Yata said, sticking his head round the kitchen door, spatula in hand. "Didn't she put it in your room?"

Anna slept over at Yata's and Fushimi's apartment half the week now, occupying the study which they'd converted into a bedroom for her. It made Kusanagi feel better that she didn't have to constantly inhale the cigarette smoke wafting up from the bar every night – he'd always worried about whether it was affecting her health and growth, but hadn't had the will to drop his own smoking habit or find someone else she could live with who wasn't a smoker.

"Seri did put it in my room, but it's not there now," Anna said.

"Oh! Wait – yeah, that's right – sorry, I used it last week to stitch a button back onto Saru's uniform. He snagged it on the corner of the heater…" Yata murmured. "Check the top drawer of the chest in the living room. Is it there?"

"Yes, it's here," Anna said, finding what she needed and retreating to her room to make the necessary repairs. She was still in there stitching when Yata heard the sound of a key turning the lock of the front door.

"That you, Saru?" Yata called from the kitchen.

" _Tadaima_ ," Fushimi's low mumble came in response – he was getting better at producing normal greetings upon returning home, unlike the determined silence of his entrances when they'd first moved in, which had often made Yata jump because he'd sometimes not heard him come in until he was right behind him at the stove.

" _Okaeri_ ," Yata sang back cheerfully, wanting to give positive reinforcement to the conventional politeness Fushimi was trying to make a habit. "Is the captain with you?"

"Yata-kun," Munakata said, answering his question by appearing in the kitchen doorway. "Thank you for inviting me over for dinner."

"Still so proper after all this time," Yata grumbled in disbelief. "It's not like we don't do this every week."

"And I appreciate it every week," Munakata smiled before turning towards the petite figure who had just stepped up beside him in the kitchen doorway. "Ah, Anna-chan, that was a good fight today, wasn't it?"

"Yes, Reisi," Anna smiled back up at him. "It was fun."

In private, it was "Yata-kun" and "Anna-chan" from Munakata's lips these days. In public, as always, the Blues and Reds would bicker and banter while joining forces to take criminals down, and on the job, the captain unfailingly kept to "Yata-san", " _Aka no O_ or Kushina-san" and "Fushimi-kun". But in their personal lives, they'd all settled comfortably into a remarkably domestic routine over the past year.

While Fushimi had originally thought he would only spend one night a week at his and Yata's apartment, things had changed. Akiyama and Benzai had really stepped up to the plate after Nagato's arrest, when they'd seen how much of a work burden Fushimi had taken on all this time. Their increased keenness for more responsibilities had recently made it possible for him to sleep here twice a week. He would come home at night on the eve of his days off, and Munakata would join them for dinner. Anna would eat with them too so that Kusanagi and Awashima could have some couple time while Kamamoto ran the Homra bar.

After dinner, Kusanagi and Awashima would swing by so that Awashima and Munakata could return to headquarters in the captain's car, while Kusanagi would drive back to Homra with Anna. If no emergencies cropped up for Sceptre 4, Fushimi would spend the night at the apartment, and the whole of the next day with Yata, on his actual day of leave. They might go out, or just chill indoors unless Yata had a mobile-bar gig to prepare for. And once a month on such days, they would drive over to the suburban end of Shizume City to have dinner with the Yata family.

To these dinners, Munakata and Anna were always invited. As for Fushimi, he was no longer in a position where he had to be _invited_ , but rather, was _expected_ to be there. He occasionally remarked to Yata that he still couldn't quite understand how it was that he, who had grown up without any family worth speaking of, had somehow ended up with _two_ families.

It was Yata's mother who had made the first astounding move.

A year ago, she had visited Fushimi in the Sceptre 4 infirmary after he'd been discharged from the Nanakamado hospital, after sternly reminding herself that she _must not_ smack him on the head no matter how distressed she was about his having put himself in danger. For the very first time, she had asked him about his family and whether his mother had visited him. From his awkward silence as well as her son's later explanation, she had discovered what his circumstances truly were. Not long after Yata and Fushimi had moved into their new apartment, she had also, with her sharp feminine instincts, become aware that Munakata and Fushimi were dating.

So she had invited her son, Fushimi and Munakata to her house for dinner one evening. After dinner, she had astonished everyone by saying to Fushimi: "Saruhiko-kun, I recently reminded Misaki how you are, for all intents and purposes, a brother to him. I meant that with all my heart. You may think this presumptuous of me, and you may even be offended by what I'm going to say next, but frankly, I don't care. I don't care if it makes you angry with me, because it's perfectly normal for a mother to have to say things that will sometimes upset her children – she knows that, and she will still do it, because she knows it's something that _needs_ to be said. What I need to say is that I hope from the bottom of my heart that you will regard _us_ as your family – and _this_ as your 'maternal home', if you are willing to think of it that way. I may not be of the same social class as your birth family, but if you don't object to it, then I want to tell you that I have long regarded you as another son of mine, and I will continue to do so until the day I die – from beyond the grave, if I must."

At this point, while her husband, Fushimi, Misaki, Minoru and Megumi were still scraping their jaws off the floor, she had turned to Munakata and declared: "Captain Munakata, I am eternally grateful to you for saving my family from the gunman that day, and I would do anything in my power to repay that debt of gratitude. But my immense thankfulness to you won't stop me from saying this: Saruhiko-kun… no, _Saruhiko_ … is not someone who has no family to look out for his interests. Even if Saruhiko never acknowledges me as his mother, I _will_ be a mother to him, and I need you to know that if you ever treat him shabbily, I will have something to say to you about it, regardless of whether you are the captain of Sceptre 4, or a 'king' of one of these 'clans' Misaki has been trying to explain to me about. I won't have you think that Saruhiko has no mother or father to back him up, because he does."

In typically unflappable fashion, Munakata had smiled, bent his upper body into a bow towards her from where he was sitting, and answered: "Yata-san, I have been remiss in not properly addressing, until now, the family who cared for Saruhiko in his childhood. I hereby give you my word that I will never treat Saruhiko poorly. Although there may be times when our work requires me to send him on dangerous missions, I will never expect him again to put himself in unreasonable danger. In our private lives, I will never mistreat him. This may be coming a little late, but may I formally request that I be permitted to date Saruhiko seriously, with a view to eventually forming a proper family unit with him?"

Everyone – her husband, Fushimi, Misaki, Minoru and Megumi – started to panic when they saw tears welling up in her eyes, and wondered if an explosion of sorts was coming, when she suddenly smiled through her tears and gushed: "Yes – yes of course you may – I'm so happy for the two of you!"

" _Misaki no Okaasan…_ " Fushimi had murmured in a daze.

"Just call me Kaa-chan already," she'd insisted while rubbing a handkerchief furiously across her eyes.

"K… Kaa-chan," he'd whispered, still in a daze, using a term of address he'd probably never used in his life – he'd told Yata before that he had no recollection of ever having called even Kisa that from the earliest.

So for the first time ever, it seemed, he finally had a _mother_ worth addressing by that term.

Then in ever-practical Yata family fashion, their mum, still rubbing her eyes, had declared it was time for dessert, and hurried into the kitchen to bring it out.

Since then, they'd had family meals there every month. These events weren't the only ones on Fushimi's expanding social calendar either – his reference to his suddenly having _two_ families had nothing to do with his birth mother or other blood relatives. Because _Munakata's_ family too now had a claim on him.

The Munakata clan had been informed by their younger son one evening, when he and Fushimi were there for dinner, that they were in a serious relationship. There had been a moment of silence as they processed this, before the captain's brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew (who was in Fushimi's lap) declared with heartfelt words and facial expressions how excited and happy they were for them. The captain's parents, obviously with more than a quarter century's experience in dealing with their Reisi's remarkable behaviour and unexpected announcements, took it in their stride with a cheerful calmness that left Fushimi gobsmacked. They'd carried on with their meal, and the only further reference the parents had made to the matter was when the captain's father almost made Fushimi choke on his tea by wondering aloud if Fushimi planned to change his surname to Munakata, and if they were going to adopt any children.

All that was the recent history which had led up to moments like tonight, when Misaki, Saruhiko, Reisi and Anna sat around the kotatsu over fried rice, yakitori, miso and tofu soup, and (for everyone except Saruhiko) sautéed eggplant.

" _Itadakimasu!_ " Yata was the first to say, joined half a beat later by everyone else, before they tucked in.

"Sorry we're so late this evening," Fushimi apologised a little way into the meal. "The number of reports I had to process after this morning's arrests…"

"No worries," Yata assured him. "You did message me to warn me, so I started cooking later – and I know you didn't want to overload Akiyama with all that work tomorrow on your day off."

"I believe Akiyama-kun is enjoying his increased responsibilities, though, don't you think?" Munakata asked Fushimi. "He practically pushes you all the way out the main door every week."

"Mm, but he's still not firm enough with the team."

"Not tyrannical enough, you mean," Yata snorted.

"Oi."

"Misaki, the fried rice tastes _good_ ," Anna said approvingly – it wasn't just in height and strength that she was growing – she was also becoming more verbally expressive these days.

"Oh! I mustn't forget to remind my mum not to make fried rice for tomorrow when we go over for dinner – otherwise, you guys'll be eating the same dish two nights in a row!" Yata whipped out his phone to text his mother. "It'll be exactly the same cos I did learn how to cook this from her… gah! She's psychic – I swear she's psychic – she's already _just_ texted me asking me what she should cook… and… aaargh, she's asking me _again_ whether I'm bringing a girlfriend along…"

"It is understandable that a mother should be concerned about whether her eldest son has someone he could potentially spend the rest of his life with," Munakata smiled.

"Aaaagh, girls," Yata groaned, turning red in the face. "It's _hard_ to talk to girls!"

"Misaki, girls are just human beings," Fushimi stated unsympathetically.

"I know. It's just… they're just… urgh, it's just hard, okay?" Yata muttered, shovelling some fried rice into his mouth.

"But Misaki talks to Anna all the time," Anna said sensibly.

"Anna is _Anna_ ," Yata said to her. "I've known you forever. And you're a _kid_. It's different. I'll _never_ be able to talk to other girls without humiliating myself completely, and I'll probably _never_ get married."

"Don't worry," Anna said seriously. "When Anna is all grown up, Anna will marry Misaki."

Yata almost sent his fried rice down his windpipe and had to swallow copious amounts of water to keep the food going down the right passage to his stomach.

" _Anna!_ " he spluttered, even redder now. "Don't joke about things like that!"

"Who said I was joking?" Anna answered, completely poker-faced.

"Eh?" Yata's enormous hazel eyes widened further as they stared into her mysterious ruby ones. " _Ehhhhh?!_ "

…

He wondered if other people could detect scents in their dreams the way he could always smell Suoh Mikoto's cigarette smoke in his.

"You look good," the late Red king drawled as they sat side by side on a hill, looking out over the spring-green landscape. "You look _happy_."

"I am happy," Munakata agreed, enjoying the calmness of the scene and the company.

"Great. I was gettin' tired of seein' that long face of yours every time," Suoh rumbled. "It's nice to sit here and just be, without all the fretting."

"I don't think I've ever heard you say anything so sensible," Munakata smiled.

"Even the dead can become smarter than they were, you know."

"Ah, so you should really give up that ghastly habit – it'll kill you if you're not careful," he joked, pointing his chin at Suoh's cigarette.

"Our boy's beaten the habit out of _you_ , eh?" Suoh chuckled.

"He won't stand for it."

"He's good for you. So you be good for him too, y'hear? He still started out as my boy even if he's yours now, and I'm still looking out for him."

"You and half of Tokyo, it seems," Munakata remarked in amusement.

"Well, I'm happy to see you in good shape. You take care now. Talk to you another time."

The late Red king got up and walked away, cigarette smoke trailing behind him, and it no longer broke Munakata's heart to watch him go.

…

This week had seemed longer than usual. Perhaps it had to do with the thwarted museum heist turning out to be a bigger deal than they'd expected it to be, with the international news media descending on Tokyo to interview the people who had prevented the loss of valuable historic treasures. (Fushimi had dealt with the incoming requests from numerous newswire reporters and media-relations organisations first by dodging them all, then by sticking Reisi in front of the cameras when he could no longer evade them.)

Also, he'd had several social engagements during the week, including dinner with the people he was very gradually starting to think of not just as "Misaki's family" but his own too. They'd also had dinner with the Munakatas ("your in-laws", as Misaki constantly referred to them, always with a giggle that he would attempt to cover up with a fake scowl), and lunch with the Silver clan (it still drove Misaki crazy how much better than him Yatogami Kuroh was at cooking).

But at last, this hectic period seemed to be winding down, and Fushimi heaved a huge sigh of relief when he and Reisi were able at last to retreat to the captain's apartment in Tsubaki-mon on Sunday evening, after _finally_ finding a stretch of time during which neither of them would be needed to be physically present at HQ.

Fushimi collapsed on the leather sofa he'd bought, which he'd insisted that the living area had to have so that he could watch television and play his console games in comfort. "Why has this week been so, _so_ busy?" he moaned, covering his eyes with his left arm.

"Such times will make you feel more grateful for peaceful moments like this," Reisi said, bending down to kiss his lips and run his fingers through his hair. "You'll feel better once you've had a quick shower – go and wash up. I'll prepare the futon so you can take a nap, then I'll wake you for dinner."

Fushimi peeled himself off the sofa, stumbled out of the living room and grabbed a yukata from the bedroom wardrobe to change into after his shower, then slouched into the bathroom. Once he was done with his shower, he headed straight for the bedroom, dived under the duvet on the futon, and was out like a light in five minutes.

He woke two and a half hours later to the smell of beef stew heating up on the stove. Of course. Misaki – lifesaver that he was – had given them a batch of it mid-week to put in their freezer, to be heated up when needed.

Fushimi stretched, went to the bathroom to use the toilet, rinse his mouth and wash his face, then he padded over to the kitchen. From behind, he slipped his arms round the other yukata-clad figure at the stove.

"Sorry to leave you to do all the work," he murmured into Reisi's ear.

"Hmm? This isn't work at all, Saruhiko," Reisi chuckled, turning his head to nuzzle Fushimi's face. "It's only heating up what Yata-kun so kindly gave us. And it's the rice cooker that's done all the work of preparing the rice."

Fushimi rested his chin on Reisi's shoulder for another minute or so, watching the steam rise from the pot, then he slipped away to get two plates, mugs and sets of cutlery. He scooped out the rice onto the plates, carried them to the small dining table in the living room, and filled the mugs with drinking water. Misaki's mum… no, she was now _his_ mum too… had given them a jar of homemade vegetable pickles, so he scooped some out onto a small side plate for Reisi. He went back into the kitchen to get the stew which Reisi had transferred to a casserole dish, and set it between them at the table as they sat down together to eat.

"I know we seem to have had a lot of additional work as well as social engagements this past week, but I'm grateful for all of it," Reisi said as they enjoyed Misaki's delicious stew. "On the work front, it means that all is well with the Blue clan, and on the private side of things, I truly appreciate now what it was that the Silver king said to me a little over a year ago."

"Hmm? What did he say?" Fushimi asked, stealing a pickle from Reisi's plate because he still thought of himself as someone who refused to eat vegetables, but Kaa-chan's pickled concoctions tasted pretty damn good – sweetish, only mildly tart, and not at all like vegetables – and he'd nick a bit whenever Reisi was having some.

"Weismann-san said he'd learnt, after all he'd been through in life, that what mattered most deeply to him was being able to spend happy moments just sitting down with the people he cares about for tasty meals around a small table. I have come to fully agree with that sentiment."

"It's still strange to me to suddenly have so many people to eat proper meals with, but I guess there are worse ways to live," Fushimi said. "Weismann, though, had better hold on to his Black Dog, or he'll lose one of his precious people at his White Rice Table if the new Colourless king keeps trying to woo that fellow back to the seventh clan."

"Goodness, that woman," Reisi remarked, after taking a sip of water. "She is energetic and intelligent and may not let up in her attempts to bring the most talented members back to her clan – but Weismann is clever enough to hold on to Yatogami Kuroh, I believe."

"Speaking of whom… weren't _you_ kind of interested in him too, at one point?" Fushimi asked, eyeing Reisi over the rim of his own mug.

"He is a naturally brilliant swordsman," Reisi agreed. "And he and I do have a certain degree of chemistry in our swordfighting styles. But he isn't one for the Blue clan – or for me, Saruhiko. That place is and always will be yours alone. In fact, _I_ should be the one wondering if I'm going to be abandoned by you, shouldn't I? For one, the new Gold king has made his admiration for you very plain, and for another, the Green throne remains empty – it's as if the powers are waiting for you to say yes to their offer."

"I won't say yes."

"Saruhiko, although I want more than anything to keep you by my side, for the sake of your own potential, I don't want to hold you back from greater things. Didn't you see everything the powers had to show you about what it would mean to be the Green king? Was it not immense?"

"Absolutely – the depth and breadth of everything I needed to know to head a clan that would stand for the aspect of abundance and growth… and it wasn't for me. I didn't want it. I don't want to be that king," Fushimi shook his head, still finding it hard to believe sometimes that he'd even been presented with the offer some seven months ago. "Besides, can you imagine the look on that little shit Gojou Sukuna's face if it happened?"

"It would make an amusing picture, I'm sure," Munakata chuckled, before saying in more serious tones: "But truly, Saruhiko – I've said this before, and I'll say it again – you shouldn't hold yourself back from all that you could become if the only thing holding you back is me."

"Munakata Reisi," Fushimi said sternly. "You're not holding me back. This is where I _want_ to be – right here beside you in your Blue clan. Maybe if the Green throne is still empty ten years from now I might have another think about it, but otherwise, no."

They ate in thoughtful silence for a while, then Fushimi pondered aloud: "Do you think Anna was joking about what she said that night – about her marrying Misaki when she grows up?"

"It is always hard to tell what the Red king is really thinking."

"Although she really has become more like a regular adolescent girl this past year, she's still hard to read – but she can see each person's deepest truth and fate, after all."

"I truly cannot tell if she was teasing Yata-kun. But does such a possible future for them trouble you?"

"No. But you know Kusanagi-san'll have a fit when he hears."

"We'd better sound out Awashima-kun so she can be there before Kusanagi-shi strangles Yata-kun."

"Yeah, let's do that."

They finished their meal, washed the dishes, and cleaned the table. A few text messages came in from Awashima and Akiyama, so they spent a bit of time sitting on the sofa, leaning against each other as they responded to the work queries that had cropped up. Then Fushimi, still feeling worn out from the past week, said he was going to bed for the night.

"Let's go," Reisi said, rising with him and switching off the living room lights.

"Eh? You can't be sleepy yet – you don't have to come to bed yet if you're not ready."

"Right beside you in bed is the only place I _want_ to be," Reisi smiled, wrapping his arms around him.

"Never would've guessed when we started that you'd turn out to be so snuggly," Fushimi remarked, leading his man to their bed.

Knowing that Fushimi was still worn out from the whirlwind week they'd had, Reisi didn't try to make love to him or keep him awake – he only drew him into his arms and held him the way he liked to be held, giving him all the warmth and security he needed.

But Fushimi was the one who stayed awake of his own accord, breathing in the scent of Reisi's skin, and destressing to the steady rhythm of his breaths and the stroking of his hand over his back.

"Even if I ever became a king, we wouldn't change, would we – you and me?" Fushimi murmured.

"You and I would still come home to each other, and we would still fight side by side," Munakata murmured back.

"And if I got lost in some new Jungle labyrinth of my own making and couldn't get out, you'd come for me, wouldn't you?"

"To the ends of the earth and beyond."

"That's nice."

"It's true. So will you take the Green throne?"

"Nah. I like it right here."

Then he slept.

\- END -

* * *

 **Author's note, 29 October 2016:** This was a story I felt I simply had to write, although when the going got hard, I did sometimes wonder why I had ever begun it. Still, it's done, and I hope the fic as a whole is to the satisfaction of at least some readers.

Thanks to everyone who has read this story – whether you dipped into parts of it, or stayed with it from start to end, I'm grateful to have had your company along the way. This has been quite an unwieldy tale, and it obviously doesn't appeal to a lot of people, but if you've read it and liked it, then I'm glad it was a good experience for you – and to those of you who've left me lovely comments about various chapters, I'm thankful for your kind, positive thoughts and encouragement.

I want to say a big thank you to Anonymous Fanatic for all the beautiful drawings she did for this story. She drew pieces for far more chapters than I ever expected her to, and I love every one of them. I've also heard from readers who admire the drawings greatly too, and who, like me, have appreciated the detail, colour and sheer feeling in them. I'm grateful and honoured to have had the opportunity to view such art, and I'm still amazed that something I wrote helped to inspire it.

Readers who know K canon thoroughly will know that I tweaked some facts from the original anime/manga/novels/short stories (like where Yata was living, and Weismann's attitude to war) and had to make up or guess at other details (like the names of Yata's parents, Munakata's sister-in-law and the Rabbit from the Kokujouji branch family; and how old Munakata's niece and nephew were). I'll just have to claim artistic licence for the tweaks. By and large, though, I've tried to stay consistent with canon. But I'm sure that as more K stories are written and when Seven Stories is eventually released, much of what I've conjured up in this fanfic will no longer make sense. Still, it's been fun writing it.

It's been a good five months of hard writing for me, so it's time for a break before I start on anything else!


End file.
